Black Angel Six: The Headhunter Protocol
by Caccus
Summary: Team Dark are some of the best of the Headhunters; mercenary assassins who pursue bounties left by the United League of Nations and Noxia in their brutal war against each other. After a ULN victory, Team Dark is contracted to kill the Lord of Admirals Du Couteau of Noxus as he fled on his ship. Little do they know that on that ship, a Dark Angel of Death was born. And it's hungry.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**His Lord's Ship ****_The Ravenous Hydra_****, Unknown Hours, Unknown Time**

She was a Headhunter. Of all warriors of this time, one of the best. As one of the mercenary assassins that pursued the numerous bounties paid by the United League of Nations and Noxia in their endless war against each other, it was her job to collect the heads of whomever each other side wanted dead. Her team had picked up a big contract, this time the pay was so good, it should have been the last job she would ever have to do, if she didn't waste it all the night after on booze, gambling, and men. It was supposed to be THE mission that set her for life. But this time, everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

Drips of water on her face woke her. The female Headhunter gasped, then scrambled to her feet. Her flailing limbs kicked up the shallow muddy water that pooled over the hard cold floor. Her instinct drove her to try and find cover, darkness, any form of concealment and then formulate a plan. She dashed to the darkness of the edges of the room, but was stopped short from the shadows when the chain collared on her neck drew taut, and the headhunter fell flat on her back, splashing noisily against the muddy water.

_Urk! Hack!_

The woman coughed and gasped, laying flat on her back, drawing greedy breaths. Brown muddy water soaked into her grey Noxia Navy uniform. Not that it mattered if she ruined it. She killed it's former owner a few hours ago when she had inflitrated the ship with her comrades.

But she was missing something more important. Her weapons.

The headhunter rolled back on her knees, and despite nursing a bruised windpipe, found the strength to crouch behind the stone pillar to which she was chained. It was a short, circular concrete lump, about chest high, with what seemed to be a paneled door that led into the pillar itself. On the door was painted a dark number six, faded and browned with something that looked suspiciously like blood.

The woman cursed. She needed to get her weapons and get out of here. Maybe if the chains were long enough, she could use it to strangle her captors when they eventually would come to check up on her, take their weapons, blast off her chains, then capture an enemy fighter to escape-

"Good evening," A deep voice cut in. The sound of the man echoed off of the wet floor and the cold dark walls. The headhunter searched about frantically for the source of the voice.

"I'm sorry for treating you like this," the man said again, almost sincerely, "Miss Headhunter, it must be terribly uncomfortable." His clear, cultured voice fed into a microphone from the next room, that transmitted his voice to speakers set up all around the poor woman in chains. Before him was a panel of instruments five feet wide, and a one-way mirror that looked into the room that the headhunter was trapped in. He leaned on his hands while he talked to the headhunter. A nervous man in a white lab coat fidgeted to the side.

"But to be fair Miss Headhunter, this is no more uncomfortable than what you had planned for me, is it? You tried to kill me."  
The woman realized who it was.

"DuCouteau!" She screamed, realizing that of all things, her mark was taunting her from afar. Of all the humiliations- that the man who she was paid to kill would be so close-!  
"Yes, I am Lord of Admirals, Marcus Du Couteau," The man behind the microphone bowed , even though the woman had no way of seeing it, "At your service."  
"Come out here so I can choke you to death!"  
"No, thank you, but you can do something for me." The Lord of Admirals tapped some controls, sparking the nervous man in the lab coat to reach and and mutter incoherently.  
"...be careful with those..." the egg-head murmured, but the imposing man in the admiral's uniform either did not hear him, or ignored him, for the admiral finished inputting the controls, and sent the command through.

"Here, your weapons."

The panel inside of the stone pillar opened, and from it, a platform rose from beneath. On it neatly rested a pair of scythes, and a magnum with a few clips. The woman grunted, then lunged for her weapons, and quickly had them in her hands. She loaded her gun, and immediatly started shooting at the chain on her neck. The sound of gunshots splattering against steel echoed through the dark room.

"You'll want to save your ammo, Miss Headhunter, for the task you're going to do for me."  
The Lord of Admirals tapped in some more controls. The taps of his command and the continued simpering of the lab man to his side belayed the gravity of his actions. He placed his hand over the lever that would release those things into the room.

"Do your best to survive." he said, throwing the lever.

And from that same stone pillar, the panels slid out, revealing that platform again. On it, a hard, carapaced egg-shaped thing. It was purple in hue with an oily rainbow sheen that could barely be seen in the low lighting of the room. Without hesitation, the headhunter leveled her magnum at it, and fired three rounds dead center of the object. The thunderous roar of the heavy pistol bounced about the dark, wet room in dozens of deafening echos. Despite the heavy caliber of the rounds of the gun, the egg-shaped thing emerged unscathed; the hollow point bullets splattered harmlessly off of the smooth chitinous plating.

"M...marvelous d... density," the scientist stammered out, pulling out a hankerchief and wiping the sweat off smooth bald head, "don't you agree?"  
The Lord of Admirals, engrossed, nodded without looking away.

A scratching came from inside the egg, and it split from the top. Razor sharp petals peeled away from the tip of the egg, exposing an opening to the inside. Some screeching could be heard from the inside of the egg. The headhunter gulped, dropped to a knee, and raised her magnum a few degrees higher. The Lord of Admirals and the scientist were equally transfixed.  
An unusual silence spread through the room. Only the drips of water leaking from the top could be heard echoing off the walls.

A purple carapaced worm, with a curious domed skull and small insect wings, poked its head out from the egg's top. It turned to screech at the-

A magnum round blasted the worm back so quickly that it seemed to disappear. Like the worm simply vanished. But then another worm rose from the egg, and to look the headhunter, and then another, and another. The woman fired desperately she could, but for every worm she killed, another rose from the egg, locking onto her. Finally, the gun clicked instead of fired, the slide on the top slid all the way back. She cursed, throwing away the empy magnum. The headhunter drew her scythes, while the worms took advantage of the cease of fire to all leap enmasse from the maw of the egg at her. They were barely a foot-and a half long, but their shark-like mouths were full of razor sharp teeth, and they lunged at her with animalistic speed and precision.

"Damn you!" The headhunter yelled, flourishing her scythes. They glinted through the air, and carved at the worms before they could reach her throat. She swung her scythes with expert force, but to the headhunter's astonishment, the blades of her weapons failed to cut clean through the worm bodies, instead leaving shallow cuts that sent the worms tumbling to the ground, screeching in pain.  
"What!" The headhunter muttered to herself in disbelief, "These scythes can cut through clean two millimeter thick neo-steel! Tough bastar-!"  
The worms writhed in the muck before her, injured, but still alive.  
"Raaah!" The headhunter stomped on the worm's heads with her metal tipped-boots, cracking the shells with every strike. She kept on screaming in rage and frustration and fear, relishing the feeling of the worm's lives fading away beneath her feet. Her screams echoed about the chamber. The cracking of chitin and the yells of a headhunter travelled even through the glass of the mirror into the observation room. The scientist took a step back from the ferocity, but the Lord of Admirals seemed to liven up in it.

Then it was done. The last worm twitched and died. Its screeched echoed off of the walls, deep into the bowels of the facility.

"O...oh... how disappointing." The scientist wiped his face sweat off. The excitement was too much for him. "I'm surprised that it was a female who finally overcame our experiments. She must have been particularly skilled. A pity we'll have to kill her. I should perhaps get a team to study her biologicals once we've processed the corpses."  
The Lord of Admirals turned to the scientist. Du Couteau would never admit it, but even he got excited. Experiencing human emotion from such intensity was a degrading moment for him that left a bitterweet taste in his mouth.  
"The last thing I will do, Dr. Grossman," DuCouteau growled, recovered,"is hand over that warrior's body to the filthy, perverse hands of you and the research department."

The Lord of Admirals watched intently through the mirror. The headhunter slouched to the stone pillar, and lay back in exhuastion. Despite his intentions, the doctor was right. It was a pity. The woman fought well, better than her comrades at least. The Lord of Admirals glanced back down at the display. His brow furrowed in confusion.

"This panel says that this egg contained thirteen experimental beings, right?"  
"Er, well, yes, it does seem to say that-"  
"I count only twelve."

"What?"

"There are only twelve worms bodies in there." The Lord of Admirals stared back into the room. "Where's the first worm that the headhunter shot?"

Drifitng, motionless, Specimen 6 floated towards the last heat source in the room. It knew it's directive. It sensed that it's brothers had failed. It felt the warm of the human female burning bright to it's thermally sensitive eyes. It felt that warmth grow brighter and brighter, like a luminous sun to the worm. It was getting closer. Oh so close to that sweet warmth. It struggled, fighting against it's natural instinct to lunge at the human's throat. It felt a wave of water pass over it. It seemed that the human had sat down, resting.

_Good. It's guard was down._

It patiently waited in that muddy, barely ankle-deep water. Drifting, innoculous. Making only the softest waves of it's body to slither closer and closer to the human female. What most animals would have to learn through years of experience, Specimen Six's hunting instincts were keenly developed from the start.

It was the hunter, it just KNEW on a genetic level, just as it knew THAT was it's prey.  
One final wave, a slither, and it tapped the woman's hand with the back of his body. Specimen Six sprung like a trap. Letting loose a screech that cut through the water and into the air, it curled it's body like a spring, pushed off the concrete floor, and leapt for the human.

"Wha-ARRGH!" A worm burst out of the water and wrapped itself around the headhunter's gun hand. With insane strength and blinding speed, the worm slithered further up the woman's arm, and with a flexing of its body, cracked it in three different places. The pressure caused her to drop her right-hand scythe. The curved blade fell uselessly into the shallow muddy water below.  
The headhunter slammed her arm against the concrete pillar, hoping to shake the worm off, but Speciman Six held on with a vice-like grip on the human's arm, still screeching. Every slam onto the pillar the human made only served to cause more damage to the fractured bones of her arm. The human grunted in desperation and pain.  
She grabbed one of her scythes.

"Aaah!" The headhunter raised her scythe, and brought it down on the worm on her arm. Whether she intended to cut off the worm or cut her own arm on is unsure, but regardless the worm swiftly twisted to avoid the blade, instead the headhunter cut deeply into her elbow joint. The woman lurched forwards in pain, clutching her arm, which was all the opening the worm needed to race to her throat and bite at it.

KREEEE!  
"Noo!"  
Specimen Six's razor-sharp teeth carved through the headhunter's soft neck tissue like a cookie cutter. The headhunter fell to her knees, clutching at her wound. Blood gurgled from the headhunter's throat. She struggled to breathe. Meanwhile, 6 twisted back and away, gnawing at his morsel hungrily. The woman stared up to the cold ceiling, choking, her eyes glazing over. Then after a final sputtering gasp, she pitched forwards, falling face-first into the brown muddy water and died.

The two men who were watching what had happened stood stock still, shocked into stunned silence. Sweat dripped onto the cold steel floor, and it wasn't only the scientist's this time. The Lord of Admirals was the first to recover. He turned to the scientist, eyes narrowed.

"I thought you said they weren't intelligent." The Admiral glanced at the worm, and then back at the scientist. He angrily swept his finger to the creature in the room. "THAT is not unintelligent!"  
"Er... well... that's impossible, you see. We've carefully engineered them to have these perfect mental limiters, you see, so they're no way that it could do anything as advanced as planning." The scientist neverously adjusted his glasses. "I presume this one was just lucky-"  
"Hubris. If it can be lucky enough to accidentally fake being shot and hide in the water, then it can be lucky enough to evade your so called 'perfect' mental limiters." The Lord of Admirals sighed, and turned back to look at experiment in the room. His eyes took on a new light of interest.

"Er, well," The scientist picked at his eye. "in any case, that can be studied after we sterilize the room and dissect it. But first, watch!" The scientist leaned forward for a better look. "It is changing."

The Lord of Admirals turned to look at the lone survivor of the room. The worm was groaning and screeching. Its' shell seemed to be pressured in some areas. It flexed and kicked, like it was in pain. It curled itself into the most contrived shape it's frame could handle- and then-  
"KREEEEEE!" Claws burst from it's body. Scythe-like claws, purple, and razor-sharp, exactly like...  
"The headhunter..." DuCouteau finished. "How-?"  
"Amazing, isn't it?" Dr. Grossman adjusted his glasses, no longer nervous. "It absorbs the bio-electrical impluses of whatever it devours with tremendous efficiency. Everything that it's latest meal knows, loved, or learned, is absorbed into the worm's body and it adapts. This female must been very skilled with her scythes."

The Lord of Admirals stared intently at the experimental creature.

"Well, now you know what the experimental weapon is capable of, Lord of Admirals, sir. I, personally, can't wait to dissect the worm and that woman- I mean, uh, well, just the worm."  
The scientist reached out to tap in the controls to gas everything in the room. He input in a few commands, then-

"No." DeCouteau grabbed the doctor's arm before he could press the button. The Lord of Admirals turned to look at the strange creature; it was enjoying use of its new claws, stabbing them experimentally in the body of the Headhunter it killed. It seemed to be screeching in delight. "Take it alive." The Lord of Admirals face took on a ghost of a smile. A smile not unlike that of a predator's. "I like this one."  
The Lord of Admirals drew closer to the creature in the room, until he could see the reflection of his own face mirrored in the creature's.

"You will be the one to deliver my greatest prize." He reached out, like he was trying to grasp the creature from beyond the glass. His nails slid over the surface, his hand twisted itself like a claw, and his calm face twisted itself into a grimace. The Lord of Admirals recalled the dozen of humiliations he suffered at the hands of the United League of Nation's finest admiral.  
"You will do what weak, fragile, idiotic humans cannot."

His claw tightened. He imagined parting that hated woman's neckbones with his bare hands. He imagined watching her stupid admiral's hat falling off, her breathing sputter and slow, and her blood, sweat, and piss stain her perfectly maintained admiral's uniform.  
This thing would give it to him.  
He growled, "Give me Admiral Lito's life!"

* * *

**The Bridge, ULSS ****_Infinty Edge_****, 2340 hours, Valoran Meridian Time**

She tipped her admiral's hat up so she could see the view better. Clear stars faced a slender, elegant woman who stood alone in the darkness of the bridge of the most elegant war machine in the universe.

A glass-like hull port that spanned the width of the room; nearly three thousand square feet of specialized transparent polyesters threaded with cold plasma, all for the vanity of all commanders who sat in the captain's chair before it. Fleet Admiral Lito didn't need the window to visualize the battle. The holographic displays that her ship AI Kayle drew up for her in real time were more useful and informative anyways. But someone, sometime long, long ago, decided that a commander of fleets of thousands was obliged by their profession to view their destructive achievements with their naked eye. Someone wise beyond their years decided to bring death and destruction up close and personal to the ones who orchestrated it. Irelia would not be the first to break tradition.

Would she be able to sleep better at night, Lito wondered sometimes, if she didn't have to see the occassional body, bloated by the vacuum of space, float past her naked eyes whenever one happened to drift near the bridge. Eventually, Irelia would always decide that the day she slept well at night knowing full well the gravity of her sins was the day she stopped being human.

So there she stood, staring out into empty space, alone on the control station of the United League of Nations Navy pride of the fleet, the supercruiser _Infinty Edge_. A significant chunk of the budget for producing the flagship was directed to developing this impact, plasma, and even laser resistent chunk of basically plate glass and bolting it onto the front of the bridge just so Admiral Lito would never be able to slip up and forget that she was anything but a master artisan of death.

The window made sure she never forgot that if stripped all her honors and love and the respect of her subordinates, that if the uniform on her was peeled away, only a mass murderer on the scale of hundreds of thousands would be left.

She was a monster... just like her long-time nemesis, the top of the Noxian military hierarchy. The Lord of Admirals, Marcus Du Couteau. At the thought of the man, her eyes narrowed and a pit of hate churned in her stomach. Though she knew she was a monster, she never forgot whose bottomless ambition for power started this terrible war. She knew who slaughtered thousands, and forced her hand into staining her own soul black.

She would take that abomination of a man down with her, if it was the last thing she did. If only they could suffer together in Hell, just so Irelia could she her hated enemy twist in pain.

And she would have the chance to send him there soon. In the next 2700 hours they would engage the Noxia fleet at the cusp of the Eul system; one which was to be the decisive battle that would swing the tide of this war between the ULN and Noxia to their favor. She stood wondering how many more bodies would she see floating past the bridge after this next battle. She wondered if her talent of command would fail her, and this time it would be her drifting lifeless through deep space.

But she wasn't exactly alone.

A small, doll-sized figure flickered to life on the bridge's main holographic display. A handsome woman shone from inside the hologram. Her chosen appearance was that of a beautiful armored angel, with wings sprouting from her back in the manner of true transcendence. Gripped in her right hand was an ornate virtual sword, in the other hand, a sculpted greek helm. And on her face was a look of exasperation, tinged with slight concern.

Without a word, the hologram stepped off of the display table, to walk up next to Admiral Lito. Because the holograhic woman was barely two feet tall, Admiral Lito had to glance down to nod respectfully at the figure.

"Kayle. You were awake?"  
"Hah." the hologram named Kayle, threw her sword and her helm down, and crossed her arms in mock disgust. "Come on, you can do better than that. We both know ship A.I.s never sleep." And that was exactly was Kayle was. A thinking supercomputer installed on the _Infinity Edge_ to do the work of a thousand technicians in picoseconds and with flawless efficiency. If the crew was the blood of the ship and the ship itself the bones, then Admiral Lito and AI Kayle made up the brain.

"Hmph." Kayle tilted her head to grimace at the admiral. "Your wit has gotten as soft as your limp breasts, Irelia."  
"My breasts?" Admiral Lito raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to glance back down at her uniformed chest. "Explain, Adjudant."  
"Ma'am, yes ma'am! I consider the rapid descent of your nipple line at the alarming rate of one-point-four-two millimeters per year to be a level sixteen crisis at the very least! I am required, therefore, to submit to you this!"

Kayle drew up a holographic sheet from thin air, which she threw to the Admiral, who snatched the virtual memo out of the air with an amused, cautious face. A smile was almost forming on the admiral's face. Lito glanced at the sheet through the stray strangs of black hair that fell on her face.

"On it is an emergency excercise-slash-diet regimen, Ma'am! A half tub of Rocky Road ice cream every night at twenty-three hundred hours, while re-reading decades old love letters from your eleventh grade sweetheart, followed by another one-hundred and fifty hours of rewatching the same hit romantic comedy _A Rose meets a Void Gentlemen_, again!"  
Kayle snapped off an uncharacteristically sharp salute, and this time the Admiral really did laugh.  
"Hah. Piss off, Kayle." With two swift taps, the Admiral trashed the virtual memo. That c*nt of an AI has been watching her private quarters again.  
"For your information, I eat vanilla bean very night, those letters from that boy at school are only one-and a half decades old, and I actually saw _Corruption of the Depths_ last night, which was a horror film that time."

"An optimal approach, admiral. A high fat diet combined with a sedentary lifestyle is sure to add some extra volume to those water balloons on your chest."

"Didn't I tell you to piss off already?" Admiral Lito chuckled. She started walking away from the deck, tipping her admiral's hat downwards. Her eyes were covered so well by the visor that it was a wonder how she could manage to reach out and tap in the security code to unlock the door; the deck door slid open with scarcely a sound. She passed through the doorway just as quietly.

Kayle frowned. It wasn't like Lito to back down from a late night battle of wits. Was the upcoming battle really troubling her that much?  
Kayle berated herself for the thought. Of course it was. This next battle will decide the war.

"Admiral!" Kayle called out, reappearing on a nearby hallway monitor that happened to be closer to the ship captain."Whatever happens tommorow, don't be too hard on yourself."  
Admiral Lito looked up to the monitor over her shoulder to face Kayle, her smile gone once more.  
"You know I can't do that, Kayle." Admiral Lito tipped her hat even lower downwards. Irelia glanced further over her shoulder, past the monitor that Kayle was on. She took one last look out the glass hull port. "There's a window."

Fleet Admiral Irelia Lito turned and walked silently down the hallways, back to her quarters, covering her face in her admiral's hat. There would be no ice cream or letters or laughing at the same old jokes in the same old movie this tonight. Tonight she returned to her quarters, not even bothering to change out of uniform before collasping on her bed, and slept.

* * *

**The Next Day, Firing Range Theta, ULSS ****_Infinity Edge_****, 1020 hours **

"Focus, focus, focus..." She muttered to herself.

A young woman stood in one of the firing booths in an expansive, yet empty indoors firing range. She was a sloppy sight to look at, even by military standards. Her messy white hair was clipped back with a cheap purple plastic pin, her grey eyes were shielded behind scratched yellow marksman sunglasses, and she held a pistol in between her small hands. Her thick, bulky hearing protection was a size too large and slipped awkwardly onto the girl's head as she struggled to aim.

Private First Class Rook Riven inhaled deeply, trying to time her aiming with the rhythm of her heartbeat. She leveled her pistol at the target ninety yards downrange. Despite her effort, the target seemed to blur and sway at such a distance. It was impossible. Sighing in frustration, Riven lowered her gun. She closed her eyes in meditation, and blew out three quick breaths.

_Hooo! Hooo! Hooo!_

She stood stock still for a moment, gathering her focus again. Then she opened her eyes and pulled up her gun. The private tried lining up the pistol's iron sight with the target, but her unsteady grip swayed fiream's sight to and fro; so much that the target downrange seemed to be trying to actively avoid her aim.

"Grr..."

Riven took off her glasses, annoyed, and flung them angrily onto the bench in front of her; the plastic sunglasses bounced a half-foot off of the wood paneling, followed by her ear protection, which clattered off of the deck to fall at onto the steel floor at her feet.

Riven frustratedly raised her pistol again, this time ignoring any sort of firing technique like line of sight, breath control, or even a second hand to hold the pistol with. Griting her teeth, she fired the pistol haphazardly with a single hand, rapidly emptying the clip. The sound of the blasts of her pistol deafened her unprotected ears, stars shot across her field of vision from the afterimages of the muzzle flash polluted her eyes, and the target soon melted into the background from the smoke filling her firing booth. The last of the bullet casings fell tinkling to the ground. Riven, squinting and coughing in a thin cloud of smoke that she created, looked up to admire her work.

Bullet holes littered the self-healing impact foam around where she was aiming, but the target sheet itself was untouched. The smooth unblemished surface of the piece of paper seemed to be mocking her. Growling, Riven loaded a fresh clip into her gun to teach that damn piece of tree sh*t a lesson.

She stopped loading her gun. Slowly, she let the loaded clip slide out. The black piece of metal clattered to the floor, spilling training bullets from it's mouth,

Then she closed her eyes and moaned in frustration, tilting her head back. She let her arm drop. It's not like she could hit it, anyways. _How could she still be this bad at target practice?_

_You could always go back to using a sword,_ a tiny voice said in her.

"No!" Riven shook her head furiously at the thought. "I won't go back!" A warm hand clasped her shoulder, and a calm, soothing voice drifted in from behind her.

"Won't go back to what, Rookie?" Riven looked over her shoulder to see who it was. A tall, thin man with long black hair was behind her, with a skinny face and a kind smile. He wore his faded ULN auxillary's uniform in a perfectly loose, slovenly manner that suggested he'd follow the rules, to what little extent he cared for them. But by far the most striking feature of the man behind her was his occular mask that completely covered his eyes and the crown of his skull, shrouding much of his face from the world.

Still, despite the mask Riven knew the man was no enemy. In fact, despite her being very new to her Headhunter Team, she knew the man quite well. Because Lieutenant Commander Yi was her second-in command boss.

"Lieutenant!"  
She spun around, but her movements knocked over some clips of ammo she had stacked up, and the collaspe of one item led to another, a water bottle, a towel, her communicator, all falling to the floor in some demented chain reaction of clumsiness. "Ah..." Riven stared horror struck at the mess she made in front of her superior officer.  
"I-I'm sorry for the mess!"Private First Class Riven flailed about, frantically picking up her items left strewn accross the firing booth. She snapped off a sharp, if distracted salute while grasping for her water bottle.  
Damn it, she cursed silently. She was new to their team of Headhunters and she could not afford to screw it up by antagonizing her bosses.

"Heehee." Another voice, this one a woman's, drifted into her firing booth. An elegant, mature voice that suggested sophistication, yet kindness at the same time. "Is she really one of yours, Yi? She seems far too cute for that."  
Riven looked up from mopping up her water bottle to spare a moment for the other person watching her. The woman was of slightly taller than average height for women, with beautiful shoulder length hair tinted a deep blue-black. She was getting the slightest bit plump, but the grace with which every move she made granted a natural sort of health to her appearance. And her eyes. The clearest, sharpest, deepest eyes Riven had ever seen.

Riven didn't know her, but she recognized the hat that the woman wore. It was the Fleet Admiral's hat of the ULN's Second Expeditionary Battle Group. And only one person ever wore it.

The elegant woman smiled at her.  
"Hi there. I'm Lito. Admiral Irelia Lito; I'm captain of this ship." The woman's smile grew wider, and the comfort she radiated grew warmer. "Please excuse my teasing."  
Riven scrambled up to salute again, knocking over half the items she cleaned up in the process. One of the items, the stainless steel water bottle, clattered noisily onto steel floor.  
"M-my apologies, ADMIRAL! MA'AM!" Riven nearly shouted. Admiral Lito covered her mouth to hide her smile. Her water bottle lightly tapped her foot.  
"No need to be so formal, private." Irelia gazed at Riven and the private could feel her laughter through her eyes.  
"You're not even under my command... was it...?" The admiral bent down to pick up Riven's ID card from the floor. "Riven. Private First Class, Rook Riven. How nice. You Noxians always have these such short, pretty names."

"The admiral and I were just talking," Yi cut in, picking up the firearm that Riven had knocked over, inspecting it with his lense-augmented eyes. "And we happened to come across you. Sorry to say, but your marksmanship hasn't improved." Yi raised the pistol, and balancing one hand on his other elbow, he empty-fired it at the target. The pistol gave a clear, sharp click. Though no bullet came out, even a poor shot like Riven could tell that he would have hit the target dead center.

Irelia clapped sincerely and enhusiatically, which just made her next words all the more caustic.  
"An excellent test shot, Lieutenant." Irelia pointed her finger at him and made an imitation pow! with her hands. "You even managed to not shoot your own toe off. An empty gun helps, doesn't it?"  
"Heh." Yi laid the gun back down on the firing table. "And if you get any fatter, admiral, you won't be able to shoot at all. I doubt those technicians of yours will let you cut off the triggerguards just so you can squeeze those flabs you call hands into the guns."  
"Hmph!" Admiral Lito pulled off her hat and smacked Yi with it. "My _technicians_ will do whatever I WANT them to do! And you NEVER talk about a lady's weight like that!" The admiral faked a few sniffles. "We're delicate flowers like that. Aren't we, Riven?"

Irelia grinned at Riven. The private took an involuntary step back from the admiral. For a lowly private like Riven, being stared at so intently by such a high ranking superior was like being inspected by a firing squad made up of hungry lions.  
"But you're different, aren't you? I can see it already. You're much better with a close range weapon than a gun. I'm not shabby myself. I'd love to spar with you. Maybe we can cross swords sometime in the war games-"

The private balled her hands into fists. Before she knew it, she was shouting-  
"NO!" She yelled out loud; her high voice echoed a few times as it bounced off of the far walls of the firing range. The private's heavy breathing was the only sound that could be heard in the ensuing stunned silence.

"...oh." Admiral Lito tipped her hat down respectfully. "Alright then."  
"..."

Riven stared at the ground, fixeated at her feet. Her breath was quick and her skin cold and sweaty. Her head was totally blank from fear of having displayed such insubordination to an admiral of all things, from the intensity of the leftover emotions still bottled in her chest, and of her past.  
Her bloody, sword-filled past. The past she ran away from when she left Noxia.  
Her bloody memories jumped on her once more, and before she knew it, she was running; sprinting as to where was as far away from her past as possible. Lieutenant Yi and Admiral Lito were calling after her, but Riven didn't want to hear it. She would never go back to that past. Never.

As the private's rapid footsteps faded into the distance, the two officers stood in something like stunned silence. Admiral Lito tipped her hat down further. Her eyes slipped away from the florescent lights above to duck beneath her visor.  
"Strange girl, isn't she?" Yi threw out, sighing, and scratching his head. He had to try to break the ice. "I wonder why she-"

"...Yiiii" Admiral Lito's voice came out low, harsh and cold now. Her eyes were narrowed into razor-sharp slits, darkened by the shade of the visor of her cap.  
"Don't even try..." Her eyes narrowed even more, as her words came out more like a hiss, "...to lie to me!" Admiral Lito slowly turned her head to stare Yi in his augmented lenses. Her dagger-like eyes drilled through the occular augments and into Yi. Any other man would have taken a step in retreat from Admiral Lito's relentless stare.

"You're not going to tell me who that girl really is?" Admiral Lito circled the much taller man, staring into his skull, her hands clasped behind her back. "I saw it when she was scrambling to pick up her stuff. No mere rookie has those kind of calluses on her hands!"  
Irelia lifted her own hand to thrust into the face of Yi.

"Those are sword calluses, Yi. Did you really think I wouldn't have recognized them?"  
The Lieutenant said nothing. He merely stared into the unnaturally rough, patched, cracked hand of the admiral that stood in contrast to the graceful, soft look of the rest of the woman. Irelia's eye twitched as she gleaned only continual silence from Yi.

The admiral seemed to give up.  
"Hmph!" The admiral turned away, tipping her hat up. Her walk was brisk, punctual and annoyed. "Fine. I'll trust you on this one, Lieutenant. You're lucky we're friends." Irelia stopped for a moment to glance at the still-perfect paper target that Riven had missed completely.

"But if for love or country or any damn fool reason, that Noxian girl gets in my way of killing Du Couteau..."  
Irelia's flexed her hands, and a flood of half-foot long blades floated out of sheaths hidden in her sleaves. They trickled around her arms and wrapped themslves in floating chains around her chest and face. Soon the admiral was standing admist a cloud of floating, razor-sharp daggers.

One sweep of her hands, and the daggers shot off like demented birds, streaking towrads their unfortunate victim. The paper target was soon engulfed in a storm of swords.

"If she gets in my way, I won't hesitate." Irelia turned to leave, along her dozens of dagger swords that floated back to her and slipped themselves back in her sleeves, and trailing in her wake was a thousand pieces of paper that was once Riven's target practice.  
Irelia gave on last parting shot as the doors closed behind her.  
"Good day, Lieutenant!"

_Rookie..._ Yi thought, as he slowly bent down to pick up the stuff that the foolish private had left behind.  
_For your own sake..._ Yi pondered, picking up the water bottle. A few more shreds of paper target floated in front of his face. _I hope I'm right __about you._

* * *

**Officer's Ravenswood Lounge, HLS _The Ravenous Hydra_, 145 Hours, Darkwill's Time**

Lord of Admirals Marcus Du Couteau stood at the end of a long round table with his general and captains who were all passionately discussing the approach of their next tactics in the upcoming battle. Though it was all a farce, of course. Even if the generals he fielded still thought they could win this next battle, the Lord of Admirals had different plans. He'd lose some useful ships with them, but on the bright side, he might finally get rid of these damn generals. He smiled softly as one of his inferiors told a joke drawing rascous laughter from the men at the war council. The Lord of Admirals wondered if any of these men were going to survive the next fight given how he planned to use them.

Then his personal communicator started beeping rang. The Lord of Admirals answered immediately.

"There had better be a good reason why you are disturbing your Lord this late at night, cadet,"  
"Y-Yes, M-Milord!" A shaky young man's voice came tumbling out of the communicator. The man-boy's high pitch was grating enough to want Du Couteau to order the man shot already. "It's about Specimen Six! We fed it more humans like you ordered us to and- it- it..."  
"What is it?" Du Couteau was already getting annoyed, and his generals could sense it. Those closest to him started to edge nervously away. "Spit it out!"  
"I- milord i-It started TALKING!" Du Couteau shifted his communicator a few more inches away from his ear, like the boy's pathetic existence was contagious. The boy's gasps for breath bled their way through the comms network, and wormed thier way into the Admiral's head. Apparently the idiot had decided to pointless run to the nearest comms station. He would definitely then, make sure that the boy was sho-

_Wait._

"What? TALKING?"  
"First started copying what the people we fed it to said, and then it started putting those words together! It's saying stuff like 'more' and- and 'hungry'!"  
The Lord of Admirals rose suddenly, causing those nearest to him to fly back in panic. One general even managed to topple over his chair in his attempt to put distance between him and the Lord of Admirals.  
"I'm going over there now." Du Couteau grabbed his coat while striding quickly out of the conference hall doors. He was in admiral mode now. "Standby and don't touch anything." The Lord of Admirals footfalls were soon the only trace of him left in the room, and the rest of the generals all sort of fidgeted around, not knowing what to do.

It would take a very long time for one of the men at the council to later realize that the Lord of Admirals had never really participated in this time's strategy planning. A strange occurance. The Lord of Admirals was normally quite the dominating micromanager. If he wasn't discussing with us over the battle plans for the upcoming clash between the ULN and the Royal Noxian Navy's largest fleet... That one enlightened man thought, that must mean whatever we did, it didn't matter.

The captain realized this with a pit in his stomach. He could tell the other generals now. Maybe take it up with the Lord of Admirals and have him share what he's got planned. But the captain's courage waned, and he decided instead to retire to his room in his ship that had a soft bed, a warm shower, and a 50-year old brandy waiting for him.

Being a smart, practical subordinate he decided to keep his revelation to himself. Why draw unnecessary attention to himself, especiall when said attention was one as ruthless as the Lord of Admirals's? It would turn out to be a fatal mistake for the captain of _The Bloodthirster_.

* * *

**That Same Dark Wet Room, HLS ****_The Ravenous Hydra_****, 210 hours**

It was the size of a large dog now.

The Lord of Admirals strode into the dark room confidently, flanked by two of his praetorian guard, the Crimson Elite, through the piles of bloody bones that now littered the floor of where Specimen Six had made his first kill. The creature now was happily munching on the skull of a man with a particularly juicy brain. Despite the fact that Specimen Six had no qualms killing the last three humans who dared approached it so closely, the Lord of Admirals walked up to within two feet of it's now massive scythe-like claws.

Specimen Six looked up, gurgled happily at the thought of more meat, and decided he would have the three fresher humans after he had finished devouring the juicy-brain-man's brain.

The Lord of Admirals spoke first with a calm, yet assertive voice.  
"Hello."

The creature did not respond. After all, food was by far more interesting.

You are called Specimen Six, do you understand?" The Lord of Admirals crouched down to face Specimen 6. He stared into the creature's animal eyes with all of his aura and authority. "You are called, 'Six'. Do you understand?"

These words seemed to grab its attention more effectively. The thing turned to the Lord of Admirals. Specimen Six tilted his head curiously. The man was not offering food. The thing's jagged, blood-stained mouth opened for a try at speech.

"You are called Six."

"hELLo.." It seemed the creature first repeated everything it heard. Like an inquisitive, homicidal child.

"I...aRe..." The creature struggled with these definitions of new words. _Maybe he needed more brains? _"kaLL...ziX?"

"No-!" The Lord of Admirals started, "You're-"  
"kHaLL..." The thing rolled the word over his barbed tongue. Specimen Six began experimenting, mentally wrestling with this new concept... the concept of a name. "kHaLL ZIx... "

Something clicked in it's developing brain.

The creature started hopping from one leg to another, whooping in it's horrid voice happily. It hapazardly swung its scythes every which way, even though a wrong swipe of those claws was sharp enough to take off DuCouteau's head off about thirty seconds before his decapitated head would even realize he was dead.  
Strangely, the happiness of the creature was far more terrifying than anything else it had shown to the observants yet.  
"kHa'Zix! KhA'zix! I aRe Kha'ziX!"

The room rang with the echoes of the creature's demented laughter. The Lord of Admirals got up and left, equal parts intrigued and frustrated. This weapon was going to be a handful. From then on, Specimen Six would only call itself by it's mistake of a label, "Kha'Zix".

And even the God of Endless Space and the Heavens of the Infinite Galaxy must have shuddered for a moment then.

For the Angel of Death that Crawls Among Man had just given itself a name.

Kha'Zix.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

**Wow! What a thrill it was to write something like this again! First of all, thanks. Thanks to Viper of Grand for lending me his ear on how to make this story awesome. Thanks to CaptainEllipis of DeviantArt who drew this awesome image! You all should go check out his profile on DA. Like now. Think of it as paying him back for the story.**

**Now, I haven't given up on Phoenix Sun. Far from it. I hope the energy I get from here can transfer over to Pheonix Sun and make them both mutually better. And I will still keep updating both storys. As... as best I can. Damn college.**

**Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this first chapter. I certainly put more effort into this one than a usually do and I hope that translated into improved quality.**

**Thanks again for supporting my work; comments, praise, and ESPECIALLY critiscm I value greatly. I hope this will be an exciting ride for both of us as I try and flounder between balancing this, school, and having a life. Maybe in that order. Anyhow, enjoy, and watch out for Chapter 2!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Slipspace Sector Z-1282, East Corridor to Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_****, 1010 hours  
**

Low, brutal growling layered over the heavy thud of footfalls of something not human filled the busy hallway. Despite the stream of officers and pilots commuting through the corridor, Captain Rengar Uhor had no trouble cutting his way through the crowd. The humans would glance up once to see what was headed their way, glance back up again once they realized what Rengar was, and then would hurriedly dodge to the side or scrape back in an attempt to avoid colliding with the massive Rengar.

Because Rengar was a Yautja. A race of people who were once so in touch with their animal side that they possessed the ability to shift between human and beast forms by thought. Rengar was a particularly massive specimen of his species; tall, bulky, with a thick braided mane and a lion's skull for a face. His armor and his breadth put him a good two or three times larger than the average human. But far more intimidating than his size was his choice to remain in beast form continuously. Most Yautja in the ULN chose to remain human by default, and switch to their beast forms when needed. For them, it was a matter of convenience. But Rengar was different. He was always different, and always will be so long as he prefered his savage beast side to present himself to the world. The Yautja ground his fanged teeth when the door's keypad denied him access to the Bridge. His growl grew lower and even more guttural.

The Yautja's eyes narrowed. He was getting angry.

"Captain," 2nd lieutenant Nidalee Loulee interjected, "Let's not get hasty here. Locking the door's only natural. The Infinity Edge is about to prepare for a grand-scale naval battle, and they can't risk hijackers or saboteurs. Let's just try some other time-"

The captain flicked open a hand-mounted blade.

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_****, Same Time**

_PANG!_

Three ribbed claws punched through the thick neo-steel of the double doors that led into the bridge, nearly impaling a communications officer on the other side. The claws ground their way down to the door lock, cutting through the mechanisms with ease. The people closest to the door scrambled back. Several people screamed. Admiral Lito looked up from her holographic battle plan. Her hat was tipped down.  
The claws twisted about, carving a basketball sized hole in the bridge. A final flick upwards, and a hunk of metal came off with the retracting claws. The sound of metal being tossed away could be heard in the bridge. Then an enormous set of lion's claws thrust itself through the hole, and started pulling.

With a single massive paw, Rengar clawed open the door to the bridge of the Infinity Edge, as his assistant Nidalee rolled her eyes at his tactlessness. Everything stopped. Over a hundred pairs of wide eyes turned to gaze at the newest visitors to the bridge. The soft clacks of claws on metal managed to quiet the even the famously industrious bridge crew of the Infinity Edge.

_"Mu'ta enk'ouya,"_Admiral Lito greeted, striding over to the intruding Yautja. "If it isn't Captain Rengar of our very own team of Headhunters. Interrupting our work. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

_"Fum'gah!" _Rengar leveled his hand-mounted claws at Lito's face. The Headhunter captain's next words tumbled out in his native language. "_How dare you disgrace our sacred words with your filthy human tongue!"_  
The admiral sighed. She set down a virtual astrolabe onto the holographic display deck to walk up closer to the Yautja.

"What." Irelia cut in, this time in the ULN Common language, pulling herself up, and crossing her arms, "Do you want, Captain Rengar?" Her eyes were narrowing, and her left hand flexed, loosening up the telekinesis blades hidden in her sleeve. Rengar sensed this, and he started floating his own paws towards the hand axe mounted on his hip.

Lieutenant Nidalee stepped in.  
"Admiral, Captain Rengar is here to protest a breach of our contract." NIdalee pulled up a holopad and handed it to Admiral Lito. The Admiral, however, was still staring daggers at the Headhunter Captain.  
"We were contracted under the agreement that we, Team Dark of the Rothilian guild, would be the sole proprietors of this hit and it's compensation afterwards. But recently it has come to our attention that another team, Lance Corporal Jayce and his Team Royal of the Pilta guild, has also engaged in the same contract we are." Admiral stared at the holopad, but it was clear she wasn't even bothering to read it.  
Nidalee took the holopad from Admiral Lito. Something twitched in the admiral's eye.

"We are supposed to be the ones to kill the Lord of Admirals, are we not? The only ones."  
Admiral Lito rotated her head to stare at the Lieutenant. The officer took an involuntary step back once she saw the admiral's eyes, and felt their edge cutting into her. Lito's face twisted itself into a grimace.  
"And I hired more anyways. What are you going to do about it?"  
Nidalee was taken back at this. She wasn't expecting such a frank admission of guilt. The lieutenant turned back down to consult her holopad.

"Well, there are penalties and possible lawsuits-"  
"We are at war!" Admiral Lito hissed, cutting the Lieutenant off. "Sue me after you get me Du Couteau's head! Is that ALL you wanted," Irelia turned to the intruder Yautja, "Captain?!"  
_"Gulam,"_ Rengar started, using the Yautja word for 'admiral'. "What this is an insult. Do you doubt our strength,_ Gulam_?" Rengar's paw fell down and placed itself on his massive hand-axe. "Do you want us to prove it to you that we are the best?"

"Prove you're the best...?  
The motion was not lost on Irelia, and she flexed her own hand. Her blades stuggled free of their sheathes now, hovering free inside of her sleeve. The admiral and the captain each stood apart from each other, a hair away from killing the other. Their muscles tensed in anticipation. The tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

Then a ghost of a smirk crossed her face.  
"...Hm." Admiral Lito relaxed her hand. The dozens of blades in her sleeve slipped back into their sheaths. "No thanks. I'd rather not kill my own employees."  
Rengar growled in anger.  
"... bold words for a female human."

"Very. And if you're half as confident as I am-" The admiral tipped her hat up, and fixed Rengar with a grim smile. "Then bring me my nemesis' head. If you're so much better than Jayce and his Team Royal- then prove it."  
The Yautja fell silent. He didn't want to admit it- but the _Gulam_ made sense.  
"I'll offer the contract money of the other team, then, for whomever brings me Du Couteau's head. All or nothing. Sound good? I'm sure Lance Corporal Jayce wouldn't mind."  
Rengar ground his teeth at the challenge. His hand was still hovering around the holster of his axe... but then he dropped it. A flicker of life glinted in his eyes as he understood what Jayce and the rival Team Royal meant to him now, and without another word, the hulking Yautja turned to lumber out of the Bridge. Captain Rengar stalked out, parting the crowd of onlookers with ease, dragging his thick grey tail over the corrugated metal floor. Lieutenant Nidalee fell behind her captain in step.

"...and there'll be a paycut for the door!" Lito shouted to the two Headhunters disappearing into the hallways. She sighed in exasperation. Headhunters were always trouble... she stared up to the ceiling, her hands on her hips, as her officers about her cautiously resumed their work. Her eyes narrowed... but it would be well worth if it meant the Lord of Admiral's death.

* * *

Nidalee was lecturing her captain as they walked down an empty corridor. The Yautja captain strode in silence as his assistant jabbered on behind him, while calculating the cost of the door repair on her holopad.  
"... and honestly, captain! Why do you go to such lengths to utterly destroy everything you see?!" Lieutenant Nidalee jabbed furiously as she tried every system loophole in the book to try and coax downwards the astronomical amount of their bill that AI Kayle had just sent to them.  
"It's like you think our money falls off of trees! Maybe next time at least TRY knocking! Maybe we wouldn't have to pay a 500,000 credit bill just because you see doors like a can of soup! Maybe the next time we go to visit the Admiral Lito you shouldn't point at her with your stupid X-man claws and threaten to kill her! Maybe next time-"

_BAMPH!_

Captain Rengar clubbed Nidalee over the temple with a single massive paw.  
It seemed like the world flipped upside down for 2nd Lieutenant Nidalee. Lights flashed across her eyes where there were none. She might have flipped once, twice, she couldn't tell. And then she hit the floor hard. Her head knocked into the sharp metal underneath, and she bit on something hard. Her vision was blurred, thanks to her brain bouncing about in her skull.

She coughed, and tasted blood.  
She felt the captain's claws wrap around her collar, and then she felt those dagger-like nails lift her up with a single hand. The Lieutenant kicked, trying to find a foothold, but Captain Rengar had her at least a foot off of the ground.  
When the captain spoke to her through her fuzzy, ringing ears, it was whispers in their native Yautja language. His words tumbled out of his lion's mouth like thunder.

_"How dare you speak to me in that tone as a pathetic human. How dare you disgrace your beautiful beastial form with this limp, fragile human body? What a fukkin' sight! You who could pass for a human- how dare you call yourself a Yautja!"_  
_"Our... race is not what we are.. we are..."_ Nidalee struggled, as she clawed at the paw around her neck so she could breathe. Her hands were starting to change into paws with her effort. "_Who we choose to be!"_  
_"Wrong."_ Rengar punctuated her ignorance with an even tighter grip. His thick furred fingers closed in tighter and Nidalee started to legitimately choke."_We are who we NEED to be. Strong. Survival of the fittest. To choose anything but strength is to choose death. And death is no choice, it is fate."_

His vice-like grip grew tighter and tighter. The captain could start to feel her bones in the midst of Nidalee's neck meat. His maw twisted itself into a vicious grin.  
_"Well, Luolee? There's no way you can break free as a weak, pitiful human. Will you choose Strength? Or will you choose Death?"_  
A calm, steady voice cut in between them.  
"She'll choose neither." A swordpoint appeared at Rengar's neck. Even in the low light, the razor-sharp edge of the blade shone."I wonder, Captain. Will your thick hide protect your jugular from my blade?"

Rengar turned his head to stare down the length of the sword, and then to its owner. A tall, thin man. Wearing a faded ULN naval officer's uniform, gripping an enormously long sword, and wrapped about his crown were curious mask-like ocular implants. The Yautja bared his fangs at the new arrival.  
"Lieutenant Commander Yi." Rengar growled out, still not dropping Nidalee. " Threatening your superior officer?"  
"I'll do anything to protect my subordinates." Yi thrust a few millimeters forwards, pushing the point of his blade deeper into the thick mane of hair that covered Rengar's neck. The lenses of his ocular implants glinted. "Unlike you. Drop the 2nd Lieutenant, Captain."

"...Hmph."  
Rengar released his paw, dropping Nidalee onto the floor below. She choked and gasped on all fours from the air rushing back into her lungs. Rengar glanced once at Nidalee sprawled on the ground, then back to Yi. He bared his teeth and gave a soft growl, before heading back in the direction of the their Headhunter's quarters.  
Yi lowered his blade at the captain's departure, and then threw it into the floor in disgust. The Ionian-styled blade quivered in its place.  
The danger passed, Nidalee slowly got up, rubbing her bruised windpipe. She thanked Yi and in return, he told her to be careful. Neither of the two headed back in the direction of Team Dark's quarters. It would not do to catch Captain Rengar's attention now.

* * *

**Team Dark Temporary Quarters, _ULS Infinity Edge_, 1100 hours**

"Oi."  
A finger poked her.  
"Oi. Wake up."  
"Zzzz.."  
"Oi! Newbie!" An ammo clip spun at the sleeping beauty, bounced off of the young girl's head, dented the steel wall behind it, and fell in between the crack of the bed and the wall, clattering noisily along the way... but still she slept undisturbed.  
"Oi, newbie Noxian ugly scum!" The owner of voice rammed a foot onto the sleeping girl's head, and started grinding.

Riven slowly opened her eyes, and stared up the underside of a muscular woman's leg, wrapped in an extremely tight black skinsuit, and attached to an even more uptight woman standing in front of her.  
Riven pulled the foot off of her, and pushed herself up, rubbing her eye.  
"L... uce?"  
The woman in front of her was also a Headhunter. Her hard face was punctuated by her small glasses, and her hair, drawn back and wrapped into a simple, elegant bun in the back. She wore a skin-tight suit bordering on immodest, and a simple corporal's jacket over it. Slung over her back at all times was her trusted crossbow.

She was Corporal Luce Vayne, long-range weapons specialist of Team Dark.

"Don't get so familiar! I'm Vayne to you, Rookie! Corporal Vayne to your skinny Private ass! And you'll address me as Ma'am!"  
_Luce was always a hard-ass, _Riven thought groggily as she sat up to pull on some pants. Being the entitled daughter of some high-ranking ULN Navy hot-shot must do that to a person, she mused. When Riven had first going their little team, she tried to be friendly. She guessed that she would be working with Luce a lot.  
_"Don't touch me,"_ Luce had said when the two had first met, to Riven's lonely offered handshake._ "I don't touch Noxians with anything but my crossbow bolts."  
_  
"Ah..." Riven stopped speaking for a moment to yawn. "...Come on, Luce." The private sat up, stretching. "What's going on?"  
"You stupid Noxian." Vayne fell back on a chair, a disgustingly smug look on her face. "You really don't remember?"  
A knife thudded into the wall adjacent to her. Not the first nor the last. A low voice cut in, rumbling from the lower bed of a bunk in the corner of their quarters.

"Battle's starting soon." The man who spoke was sitting up on top of his bed, his long black hair falling messily to his shoulders, and laid all around him was a assortment of cruel-looking knives and blades. His eyes had a dull, dark look to him; the only light in there was the reflection of his blades as he twirled them about his scarred fingers.  
He was Sergeant Crow Talon, an exile from Noxia, just like Riven. But unlike her, Crow had no intentions to change himself. He would always be the same cold, hard man as he was when he was a special operations soldier, exiled from Noxia for failing a vital mission.

_The wounds of his humiliation run deep,_ Riven realized when she first met the man, _but not deeper than the ones he'll put in you if you cross him._  
_Stay away from him_, Riven noted to herself then. Talon continued on his diatribe, pausing only to take a drink from his flask while spinning another dagger in his fingers.  
"And our daddy's little girl thinks..." Talon shook the last few drops of scotch in his flask into his open mouth. "...Being awake will change a damn thing about a naval battle in SPACE."  
The man flipped his dagger up, and caught it by it's blade. He then flung the knife accross the room. The knife glinted through the air, spinning once before burying itself in a steel wall on the opposite side of the room. There were so many knives thrown into that particular patch of neo-steel that it was beginning to look like a small forest.

"Dumb Demacian broad..." Talon muttered just loud enough for Vayne to hear.  
"Crow..." Riven knew where this was going. She was hoping she could avoid it...  
"Oi!" Vayne stood up, her chair falling over, clattering to the floor. She balled her fists. "What'd you call me, Crow?"  
"The truth."  
"I'll kill you!"  
"Try it with a knife in your face." Talon stood up, too, grabbing a handful of knives between his fingers. Vayne started to unholster her crossbow. The cruel bow started to winch itself back automatically. The two started to move towards each other.

An animal's roar cut between the two assassins. One that was speaking ULN Common.  
"ENOOOOUGH!" Captain Rengar took a single step, the length of his stride crossing the entire room, to club Vayne over the head with his right paw. The Headhunter gave a tiny gasp, before falling back and collapsing without a sound. With a vicious backhand, Rengar caught Talon over the shoulder, causing the man to yell out in pain. His shoulder nearly popped out of it's socket and his knives fell clattering to the floor.  
"If you want to fight so badly," The Captain spoke, "then save your energy for Jayce and his damned Team Royal. We will prove once and for all that we alone deserve the honor of the greatest." Rengar reached down, and picked up Crow by his collar. "Fail me, and I will kill you where you stand."

Talon struggled to speak.  
"U-understo-od... captain."

Rengar dropped the headhunter, then turned to lurch back to his own private Captain's quarters. Talon sat up on the ground, rubbing his throat, while Vayne slowly shook the stars from her eyes. The two glanced at each other, then looked away in disgust. Vayne got up to use the washroom, while Talon limped his way to the door outside, no doubt to find the nearest bar.

Riven was left alone in the quarters. It took a moment for her to realize that she was shivering with fear.  
_Can I really handle this, _Riven thought miserably while crouched in the corner of her bunk. She had her pistol gripped between two hands in case Captain Renger had decided to actually pay attention to her this time, but even she knew with her level of marksmanship, it was no real protection.  
She sighed, and pulled her gun up, laying it's cool metal on her forehead.  
_More importantly, can I survive?_

* * *

**Eul System, Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge,_**** 1100 hours**

Empress Irelia Lito sat in her throne, watching her kingdom sprawl in front of her. Unlike the royalty of old, she ruled no land, lived in no castle and had no crown. Instead of land, she commanded the zone of control that her ships exerted with the range of their plethora of weapons.

Instead of a castle, Admiral Lito ruled from her captain's chair, and her ship and every ship under her control was a floating fortress. A two-meter thick neo-titanium IV steel alloy made up the wall of her castle, the four Magnetic Acceleration Cannons mounted on the hull that could accelerate a six-hundred ton slug of ferric Tungsten up to 4% the speed up light made up her trebuchets, and her thousands of missile pods embedded throughout the ship made up her company of archers.

Instead of a crown of gold and jewels, the only gold on her head was a synthetic thread of embroidery upon her Admiral's cap.  
Yet like any royalty of old, her domain was her strength.  
And now she took her strength to war.

One of her senior communications officers turned in his chair to speak.  
"Captain, we'll be coming out of FTL travel in thirty seconds."  
"Good." Admiral Lito tapped in some additional commands into her captain's chair. "The moment we hit the outside of the Eul system, I want all ships to sound off. Queue up the order to be broadcast, full spectrum."

"Aye aye, captain." The senior officer started speaking into a mic, recording her order to be transmitted to the entire rest of the ULN fleet as soon as the Infinity Edge left faster-than-light travel. Admiral Lito watched the comms officer carry out her order with apprehension. _Ten seconds now,_ Lito counted off in her head.  
_  
And then everything can be finished..._

"Seven!" One of the pilot announced, "Six! Five!" The rest of the bridge shot the pilot sideways glances. It was nearly time. "Four! Three! Two! One! Coming out of FTL speed travel now!"  
The pilot keyed in several controls, and pulled a lever. The lurch of the faster-than-light travel drives echoed down the length of the ship, and they supposedly arrived at their destination.  
"Confirming arrival location now. Captain, I'm opening the shutters, watch your eyes!"  
Admiral Lito nodded in confirmation as the pilot keyed in the controls to raise the shutters blocking the view of the outside from the rest of the world. As soon as the metal shutters made a crack, pure light streamed in unfettered. Most of the bridge crew raised their arms to cover their eyes.  
Admiral Lito tipped her cap down, staring straight into the light ahead.

The shutters fully opened, and the bridge crew was treated to a magnificent view of the entire Eul system, with it's lone blazing sun at the center of it. Despite the fact that it was barely the size of a washer from this distance, it's light shone brightly through the vacuum of space.

Below them, the round, smooth surface of the Noxian fortress-planet Entropy shone a brilliant pale-blue beneath them. Over Entropy is where they would have their final battle.

Admiral Lito stood up for a closer look. This was the Eul system. And also there was...  
"Kayle! Bring up friend-foe indicators. I want to see them."  
A swarm of red dots blossomed, populating the lower right hand side of the window. The enemy Noxian ships were clustered about the south pole of the fortress-planet Entropy, the one planet they could not afford to lose. Here they would be forced to fight. A small cloud of enemies. Waiting for them, yet cornered like rats.

_Here is where the Lord of Admirals will die, _vowed Irelia.  
"Kayle! What's our forces look like?"  
AI Kayle appeared on the holodeck set up to the side of the Captain's seat.  
"Bringing up the broadcast logs right now, Admiral." Kayle accessed the broadcast files to see who reported in. Apparently staring off into space, Kayle read off of the virtual list she compiled. "Our forces number eleven capital ships, destroyers _Manamune, Seraph, Phantom, Archangel_, and _Zephyr_ have all sounded off to your call. Our carrier _The Hurricane_ has sounded off. Our cruisers _Shard of True Ice _and _Mercurial_ have sounded off. Shield ship _Aegis of the Legion_ has also signed in. Finally, we have our own two supercruisers,_ Trinity Force_ and _Infinity Edge_Actual, ma'am, as well as twenty wings of fighter squadrons docked in The Hurricane standing by."

"And the enemy?" Admiral Lito folded her hands in front of her, staring at the swarm of red dots displayed on the window in front of them.

"Only six capital ships, ma'am." Kayle brought up a diagram of the swarm of red dots that was displayed on the window right then, only magnified by about a hundred million times. "Judging by their silhouettes and their energy signatures, I would say we caught ourselves the shield ship, _Randuin's Omen,_ the carrier_Warmog's Horde_, a destroyer named _The Sanguine Blade_, and three enemy supercruisers, ma'am."  
Kayle took a closer look at the supercruiser's shapes against the light of the Eul sun.

"They would be, _Last Whisper, The Bloodthirster_..." Kayle closed the diagram. "And the Noxian flagship, _The Ravenous Hydra_, has been confirmed, admiral."  
Admiral Lito gripped the edges of her seat at the mention of the Lord of Admirals' personal ship. The razor's edge in her eyes was coming to life again.  
"Proceed at double time. Tell the captain of _Aegis of the Legion_to warm up their global shields, but wait on my signal."

Kayle nodded in confirmation.  
"Aye aye, Admiral."  
Admiral Lito keyed in the controls to broadcast to all allied ships.  
"All ships, warm up engines at 50%, maintain Infinity Edge's speed and prepare to engage!"

A collection of voices of the captains under her command came streaming in to confirm. All of them, old and trusted friends. She felt her strength grow with them. Admiral Lito tipped her hat lower. Her eyes were slits now, brimming with fury.  
"Let's end this, Du Couteau!"

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_****, 1100 hours**

Alarms started blaring at a Noxian whisper officer's deck. The man frantically tried to organize the multitude of alerts that the deck was sending him. Once he managed to read what the sensors were telling the ship, he turned to the man sitting at the center of their dim-lit bridge.  
"Milord! Enemy ships warped in at our north top flank! They're thirty-thousand kilometers outside of Mass Acceleration Coilgun range! Closing in, ETA five minutes!"

The Lord of Admirals nodded in confirmation. He almost lazily brought up the holographic display that showed him the horde of ULN Allied ships that came to destroy him. He almost laughed at the thought that the ULN- no, that Admiral Lito would be so zealous as to call down the might of an entire battle group onto him.  
"So..." The Lord of Admirals Du Couteau muttered, sitting on his throne. "You've finally come, Lito!"

"Thresh!" Du Couteau called to his ship AI, "Is our surprise for the Admiral ready?"  
A holographic figure, only four inches tall, shimmered into existence onto a miniature display on the armrest of the Lord of Admiral's throne. This AI chose the appearance of some horrid monster, shaped like a man but covered in one long chain, one end ending in a vicious hook, and the other end ending in a wailing spectral lantern.

"Aye, my Lord." The AI bowed deeply. "All three of our presents for the good Admiral Lito are ready."  
"Good." The Lord of Admirals folded his hands in front of him. He slouched forwards, his hands over his mouth, studying the diagram of the fast approaching ships.  
"Let her come to us, then."

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

"Admiral!" Kayle called out as she nervously eyed a rapidly descending number displayed in front of her, "We're beginning our final approach! Thirty seconds before we reach enemy MAC range!"  
"Get the Aegis of the Legion on comms. Tell her captain that I want shields at full with a two-thousand kilometer radius, make sure we cover every one of our ships!"  
"Aye aye, Admiral." Kayle sent the order, and the _Aegis of the Legion_responded.

Shield ships sat at the absolute core of any fleet. This was because the existence of the MAC. The primary ship-to ship weapon of the age, the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, used magnetism to accelerate a slug of dense metal, usually ferric iron or depleted uranium, through a solenoid coil. What was essentially a lump of metal was sped up to a fraction of lightspeed. Such a terrifying weapon could destroy an entire ship with a single shot from extreme range. In space, there was no air to slow a bullet accelerated to 4% the speed of light.  
Thus, the shield ship was developed solely to protect an entire fleet of ships from the MACs of their enemies. How long a shield ship held on was crucial to deciding a fight, for the fleet without a shield was a fleet of sitting ducks.

From the _Aegis of the Legion_, an enormous shield of blue light erupted, enveloping the entire Allied ULN fleet in it's protective gaze. On the other side, the Noxian's _Randuin's Omen_followed suit. Soon, both fleets were wrapped their respective shields, safe, for the moment being, from the enemy MACs.

Kayle received a notification from their carrier ship, The Hurricane.  
"Fighter squadrons have been deployed from _The Hurricane_, Admiral. Eighty-five percent of her children, or seventeen fresh squads of fighters, are out in space right now."  
"Good. Patch me through to the Flight Commander."  
"Aye, Admiral," Kayle fiddled with some more controls. "Connecting now to Flight Commander Dwyane Hicks of Runic Delta squad."

A crackle shot through Admiral Lito's communicator as the radio relay of the Infinity Edge raced to catch up to the fighters out in the field that were already travelling at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour.  
"Morning, Admiral! Runic Delta Actual here, we're maintaining a steady course; ETA on enemy shields, forty-five seconds!"

"Excellent, Commander." Admiral Lito turned to the diagram of the enemy fleet's formation, which was growing more and more clear as the information gathered from Runic Delta's advancing position was updated on her holodeck.  
"Your objective is the enemy's shield ship, _Randuin's Omen_. Marking a waypoint for you now."

A whooping sensor warning alerted Kayle. The holographic figure opened it, read it for a few seconds and closed it with a grim look. The AI turned to Irelia.  
"Admiral, they're responding to our movements. Destroyer _Zephyr _has just notified us that Warmog's Horde has just released it's full payload of fighter squads. They're on their way now to intercept Runic."

"How many wings?"  
"I can't tell... looks to be about ten wings of fighters, twelve at most."  
Admiral Lito turned to switch on her comm once more.

"Runic Delta, do you read?"  
"Aye, loud and clear."  
"Runic Delta, this is _Infinity Edge_ Actual. Be advised, enemy fighter wings headed your way. You outnumber them, so I don't want any dead heroes on my watch, Commander."  
"Understood, Ma'am! You hear that boys?!" The Flight Commander yelled into his all-comm, to the responding whoops and yells of his fighter wing. "Our sweet, precious Admiral's worried about us! Alright, thanks for the heads up, Infinity, we'll move to engage the enemy fighter forces first. Runic Actual out."  
Irelia sat back, and typed in some more controls.

"Kayle, are our capital ships in range?"  
Kayle drew up a diagram with the ranges of every ship in their fleet mapped onto a holographic display of the unfolding battle.  
"We've got ninety-three by ninety-three percent coverage, Admiral. What are your orders?"  
Admiral Lito gripped her seat.

"We'll hit them from all sides at once!" Admiral Lito drew a circle around their north flank of ships. "Order these ships to move in on the supercruiser_ Last Whisper._Missiles only. I don't want a MAC round wasted on _Randuin's Omen's_ shields while it's still alive." She tapped the blue dot that represented the only other supercruiser in their Allied fleet, the _Trinity Force._

"Have _Trinity Force_ plot a vector to the enemy destroyer, and wipe it out! I want it gone!"  
Admiral Lito's eyes were blazing now beneath the rim of her cap. She was nearly spitting with energy. "And advance our remaining ships two thousands kilo centered to _Warmog's Horde_! I want that carrier BURNING the moment their global shields go down!"

"Aye aye!" Kayle nearly shouted, the admiral's heated fury infectious. The AI carried out the Admiral's orders at a frantic pace, "Admiral!"

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

"Milord!" The whisper officer shouted; alarms polluting his desk as he scrambled to close them all, "Enemy fighters plotting a course to the _Randuin's Omen_! Our full capacity of fighters from the _Warmog's Horde _have engaged the enemy, milord, but they're being overrun! They can only hold on for another minute at most!" Another officer's shouting confirmed that their supercruiser_ Last Whisper_ was being targeted by the missiles of five enemy destroyers, and more shouting alerted the bridge that their only destroyer left, _The Sanguine Blade_, had already taken critical damage from enemy cannons, being hopelessly outclassed and outgunned by the supercruiser _Trinity Force_bearing down on it.

What's worse, Admiral Lito was positioning the rest of her fleet to go for the jugular the moment his own fighters were destroyed, and the_ Randuin's Omen _in flames.

"Thresh," The Lord of Admirals called, "Slave controls of the_ Last Whisper_ to my command. Let's show our good friend Lito our first surprise."  
"Aye," Thresh bowed, "My Lord."  
In an instant, the Lord of Admiral's throne shone with the holographic proxy controls of the Last Whisper. The Lord of Admirals stretched a bit, enjoying sensation of controlling something so huge and massive, and yet from so far away. A smile crept across his face. It was like playing with the most awesome RC car ever. But this RC car had a something special, the Lord of Admirals mused. He powered down the weapons systems of the Last Whisper, and maneuvered it in position, despite weathering a torrent of missiles, until it was nearly in the center of it's assailants.

"Surprise," the Lord of Admirals muttered, "Lito..."  
He finalized the confirmation code with a few swift taps, and a keyhole with a key already in it popped out of his throne's armrest. The Lord of Admirals reached out, and hesitated for only a moment, savouring the feeling of power concentrated in that tiny, little key. Then with a smile, he turned it.

The _Last Whisper _was dying. It had tried to fend off the assault of the destroyers around it, but the comparatively tiny ships were too nimble to ever be hit by any of the_ Last Whisper_'s larger cannons, and the _Last Whisper_ stocked barely twice as many missiles as a single of the ULSS destroyers zipping around it, eating it alive. The Last Whisper put up a valiant effort, firing everything she had at the destroyers swarming around it, but it was too much. The supercruiser was beginning to crumble. Multiple hull breaches down to the innermost sections of the ships forced seal-offs of massive sections of the ship, suffocating the luckless crew that were caught in them, and more importantly, disabled any more functions in those areas. Row by row, the _Last Whisper_'s basic weapons functions ceased, her shields weakened, and she was left vulnerable.

But just as the five ULSS destroyers were about to move in for the kill, the _Last Whisper _suddenly rocketed forwards, placing itself in the center of the destroyers about her, and detonated the Havoc-grade fusion bomb that the Lord of Admirals had snuck aboard.

A nuclear sun blossomed in the engine room of the _Last Whisper._

The intial shock cracked the supercruiser in half, and at first it seemed that the bulk of the massive ship might have absorbed the shock, but then the second wave came, and the _Zephyr_ and the _Manamune _were atomized by the explosion. The _Seraph_ and the _Archangel_ were both caught by massive chunks of supercruiser-shrapnel, many of them only slightly smaller than their own ships, and soon, they too, torn apart in many pieces, eaten away by flotsam rocketing into her with tremendous force. Finally, only the _Phantom _was left. Though she was missed by the shrapnel, she was still hit by the shockwave and flung back thousands of miles per hours. She was intact, but the change in inertia was too great. The crew inside was almost certainly dead.

All about, wherever ULN forces were engaged with Noxian forces, hidden charges detonated nukes hidden on their ships. Fighters, both ULN and Noxian, careened out of orbit, falling down to the planet Entropy to burn up in it's atmosphere. The_ Trinity Force _reeled back from the explosion that took place on _The Sanguine Blade_; a nuke was hidden on there too. The Noxian destroyer was vaporized, and the_ Trinity Force _suffered crippling damage.

* * *

Admiral Lito stared in horror as she watched four out of five of the signals of her destroyers disappear, and the fifth fly back almost comically quickly from the explosion. Those were the worst of her losses, but they were not the last. Many of her fighter's signals vanished from her holodeck as mini-nukes exploded from the bellies of the Noxian fighters To her side, Kayle was shouting frantically into her virtual comm. She was standing up at the rim of her holodeck, her eyes tracked the dot that was _Phantom_, as it blinked slowly out of the battlefield boundaries. Apparently no one was left alive to pilot the ship.

"_Zephyr? Manamune? Phantom_?" Kayle was almost crying as she called out the names of the lost destroyers. "Anyone, answer me, please!"  
Only static and night answered the AI's pleas. Kayle hung her head.  
"Enemy supercruiser neutralized, Admiral. But we lost our destroyers."  
KAAM!  
Admiral Lito, to the shock of her observing crew, slammed the holodeck with both hands, cracking the plate glass at the edges. Her breathing was heavy and labored, and her eyes were lidded with frustration and hate.  
"GOD DAMN IT!" Admiral Lito slammed the deck again. A panel on the holodeck blacked out, and the diagram flickered and fizzed for a second before the automated system compensated with the remaining panels.

A clear, cultured voice echoed through the bridge. Admiral Lito recognized the voice. It had been the source of many searing taunts over the past seven years that she had gotten to know and hate it.  
"Admiral Lito." The man's voice offered in greeting. "I wanted to compliment the valor of your men of the five destroyers I destroyed. I'm sure their bravery makes up for the lives and cost in ULN credits of the ships destroyed."  
"It's Du Couteau!" Admiral Lito turned to Kayle. "Kayle! Open up a spectrum-wide broadcast in response!"

"Admiral? Are you sure? They could attain valuable information from-"  
Irelia slammed the holodeck once more.  
"DO IT!"  
"Du Couteau!" Irelia screamed into her comms unit. Her clear, furious voice resonated through the speakers fleets of both countries. "You bastar-. Killing your own men?!"  
"Oh," Du Couteau replied in an almost playful fashion, "I think that you would have killed them in a much more dignified fashion, Admiral. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for the absolute terror of death you inflict in my men."  
Admiral Lito leaned forwards, hissing into the mic on her ear.  
"You can't win by blowing up your own ships on me!"

At this, the Lord of Admirals seemed to fall silent. That was how Irelia knew she was right. But Du Couteau never did anything without a purpose. He must have known.  
"...You're right," The Noxian admiral replied, "I couldn't win just by detonating the Havok nukes that I planted on all of my ships."

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

The Lord of Admirals was leaning on his hands, his rough, large palms planted on the holodeck showing him the battle ahead. He smiled as he keyed the comm unit on his ear.  
"Fortunately, I still have an ace up my sleeve." The Lord of Admirals motioned for Thresh to signal it in.  
Thresh silently bowed, and on the holodeck, from behind the fortress-planet Entropy, a single, massive orange dot started to move from behind its shadow. It started to move in from behind to sandwich the remnant of the ULN forces between it and the Noxian fleet.  
"Well, Lito," The Lord of Admirals muttered to himself. "Let's see how you deal with ...this!"

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

"Admiral!" Kayle shouted, responding to an alert that popped up on her screen. "I'm tracking an unknown signal from behind us! It seems to be coming in from behind the planet!"

"What? What is it?"  
"I-I don't know? Mass analysis suggests a small planetoid of some sorts- but Entropy doesn't have any satellites with that amount of mass! Unless... no, wait. It couldn't be-!" Kayle started muttering, and drew up over a dozen diagrams analyzing the unknown signal at once.  
"Kayle! What's going on?!"  
AI Kayle stopped. Her holographic hand froze over a flashing diagram of what the unknown signal was. Kayle was at a loss for words. Admiral Lito had come to know that anytime that the motormouth Kayle was at struck speechless- it meant trouble. Deep trouble.  
"Kayle... what is it?"  
Kayle spun the image she was looking at around so Admiral Lito could see. The sight made her draw a short breath.  
"It's not a planetoid, admiral." Kayle looked up at her almost sadly. Her angel wings drooped down in despair. "It's a ship. A colossal ship ten times the size of the Infinity Edge."

* * *

**Team Dark Temporary Quarters, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

The explosions of what was the nukes that the Lord of Admirals detonated were of such magnitude that they managed to even cause the Infinity Edge, thousands of kilometers away, to tremor with the impact. The quake caused the Headhunters waiting anxiously in their quarters to stumble and curse, as the Infinity Edge rocked with the impacts.

After a particularly large tremor shook their quarters, Talon cursed loudly and called out to the room at large:  
"Hey! We going to be alright? Or is the great Admiral Lito not as good at playing war as she thinks she is?"

Of course, any jab by Talon had to illicit a response from Vayne.  
"Shut it, Crow." The headhunter was trying her best to act like she wasn't nervous. "This is the finest ship in the entire ULN and one of her best commanders is piloting it. There's no way the ULN would lose. But I guess a Noxian like you would be used to getting whipped, wouldn't you?"  
"You want to die, you rich little brat?"  
Vayne flicked her crossbow on.  
"Try, and I'll splatter your tasteless personality out the back of your head."  
"Shut up," Yi cut in, annoyed for once. He was running a whetstone over his sword, despite the ship's instability. "Both of you. If you've got enough energy to fight, then save it for the mission we'll have to take."

Talon growled at the rebuke.  
"Won't have a mission if we're fukken dead."  
"Won't get paid, either, if you die on the mission after this battle because you spent all your energy complaining now." Yi ran his whetstone over his blade again. "Unless you can get out and help push the damn ship, I want you resting, Corporal. That's an order."  
Talon glowered at his superior, then turned over to lie back on his bunk. The sound of a flask being unscrewed could be heard in the quarters, which had fallen deathly silent. Vayne had turned back to lie on her bunk. Talon was getting shatfaced. Nidalee was somewhere about the ship, still avoiding their Captain, who was locked in his personal quarters, doing whatever he does in there.

And Riven... Yi turned, almost not surprised to find her sleeping amidst the explosions and tremors. He noticed her blanket was scrunched up, so he tucked it over her exposed feet.  
Incredible, he thought, watching the girl sleep, despite the very real possibility of the ship she slumbered on would blow up into a million pieces without warning. _She may be tougher than even our veteran Headhunters,_Yi pondered, slightly amused. He turned to look at Vayne and Talon, both of whom were quite clearly scared shatless.

He sighed. He hoped he was right about the Rookie being tougher than she looked.  
Yi sheathed his razor sharp sword, then leaned back, and slept.  
Another explosion rocked their ship, but neither he nor Riven budged.


	3. Chapter 3

The_ Blade of the Ruined King _rose from the upper atmosphere of the planet Entropy; a colossus casting its long shadow over the fortress world below. The vessel, nearly thirty kilometers long and ten football fields wide, swamped a patch of surface on Entropy the size of a large country in a solar eclipse. It was so large that it's rising from the planet's surface changed the lunar tides of the oceans on Entropy and wiped out at least two native species in it's wake. Like the Titans of old, mortals trembled in the shadow of _Blade of the Ruined King_, whilst it unknowingly trampled over God's creation in it's careless steps.

She was a human creation of grandeur, ambition, and arrogance, and it's size alone warranted it as an abomination to God. Hence it's name, taking the title of the weapon of the rebellious king of the Shadow Isles who would challenge his superiors to his ruin; it's creators likened it as the blade of rebellion who would dare cut even God.

Due to it's size, the Dreadnought of the Noxia fleet requires exponentially more thrust than even the largest ships of the ULN fleet. Therefore after firing initial boosters, an array of thrusters spread out in a ring around it, unfurling in a metal wing a hundred miles long on each end. Each thruster edged it's massive bulk into something resembling a moving speed, and so, defying all reason, the colossus moved through space. Shaped like this, the arrogant vessel took the form of a beautiful angel.

And this fallen angel bore death upon those in her way.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

Admiral Lito screamed into her mike; her black hair flying about as she turned her head in rapid succession, switching frantically from directing her fleet with swift motions on her holodeck to barking out orders to the disarrayed mess that the fleet was.

"Evasive actions!"  
By her will, the ULN ships spread themselves in such a fashion that no one group of ships provided a vital target for the enemy Dreadnought to target. But even for all of her misdirection and baiting, Admiral Lito could not evade the keen eye of her just as capable adversary.

"Hm," The Lord of Admirals chuckled, his clear, cultured voice echoing through the panicked ULN Command Bridge. "How useless, Lito. Did you really think I wouldn't notice the weakest prey in your pack?"

A click could be heard, and Admiral Lito had no doubt that it was the key to the Lord of Admiral's command comms.

"_Blade of the Ruined King_, your Lord commands you;" Irelia could almost imagine the Noxian commander's smirk as the Lord of Admirals paused for effect. A touch of pure hatred tinged the pit in her stomach man always had a sickening flair for the dramatic. "The enemy supercruiser _Trinity Force_ is crippled...

"...So punish their weakness."

* * *

Far out in space, the affront to God raised its blade.

A single hatch, infinitesimally tiny compared to the rest of the ship, opened up a hole to a magnetic solenoid coil that ran the entire thirty mile length of the ship. There was no lightning or energy or shock blasts that centuries old movies used to depict. Only an unassuming hatch that could be mistaken for a maintenance hallway to the untrained eye, and a thousand-ton slug of Ferric-Tungsten at it's very end.

The magnetic coils of _Blade of the Ruined King_'s Super Magnetic Acceleration Cannon started to warm up. And they were aimed straight at the crippled supercruiser _Trinity Force_.

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

_No_, Irelia thought, that pit growing in her stomach. She turned and slammed the key to her mike.

"TRINITY! AEGIS!" Admiral Lito screamed, her eyes wild. "FULL SHIELDS NOW!"

Behind the immediate confirmation from _Aegis of the Legion_, an exasperated sigh trailed out of the other end. That was the voice of Captain Arman Petronov, ship captain of the _Trinity Force_ the man whom she could trust with the second-greatest ship in the ULN fleet. The man she knew, that she had just spoken to and traded jokes with at the last command meeting, was sounding more defeated than she had ever heard him sound in her entire life.

"Sorry, Admiral. Main and auxiliary systems are down. Ambient shields are only at 12%."

That pit in her stomach was burning with fear now.

"Escape pods! Get your men there now! If you can cycle the power coils then you can squeeze out enough juice for maybe a dozen men!"

Another dead sigh. There was a slight scraping noise coming from the other end. Admiral Lito could already imagine Captain Petronov unscrewing that flask of whiskey he kept at his side at all times, and taking a swig. She would have to scold him for that later.

"Captain Petronov?"

*Gulp*

"That'll take five-" The man on the other end paused, no doubt dumping another mouthful of booze down his throat. "*gulp*, hours at the very least, Admiral. You know that."

A last sigh.

"Admiral, we're done for. This is it." The captain on the other end smacked his lips. "Admiral- no, Irelia, hon, I'm sorry-"

* * *

The_ Blade of the Ruined Kin_g fired. The slug of metal, accelerated to 16% the speed of light, cleared the thirty-thousand kilometer gap between the Dreadnought and her prey in less than a second. The fifty million kilojoule global shields of the Aegis of the Legion did not help. The ambient ships of the Trinity did nothing. Two meter-thick Titanium-Aradium hull plating were punched clean through by the MAC round.

If it weren't for the massive amount of heat transfer that the Trinity Force suffered from the friction of such a blow, the MAC round would have passed clean through and perhaps the supercruiser would have survived. Instead, for physics is a cruel b*tch, the heat generated from the MAC round passing though was enough to vaporize the metal and sending a structure-shredding shockwave through the ship. Half of the ship was simply atomized from the impact, while the other floated off into space, melted, cooling into something twisted, blackened, and grotesque.

* * *

_**Command Bridge, ****ULSS Infinity Edge**_

"Hon, I'm sorry-"

A vicious scratching cut across the Captain's voice.

In the Command Bridge, the only thing that could be heard after Captain Petronov's was that scratch of static. After that, there was nothing more than a fading snowy noise that spread from what once was the Trinity Force.

An even more tense silence set over the Command Bridge. All eyes were carefully averted from the Admiral, who was sitting quietly in her chair. Her cap was lowered completely over her eyes, and many of the crew were thankful for that; no one wanted to see what Admiral Lito looked like right now. Only Kayle, the Admiral's most trusted adviser, dared speak to her now. The rest of the crew was rapt with attention.

"...Admiral?" Kayle edged forwards from the hologram, cautiously advancing like one would towards a predator. "Admiral, what do we do next?"

The fleet admiral did not respond. Instead, admiral Lito reached out and keyed the mike to her comm. Her poise was almost unnervingly steady, her voice almost unnaturally calm.

She spoke to her entire fleet. Upon every ship, every man and woman heard her words spill out of every intercom bolted to the walls.

"Attention, is your admiral, Irelia Lito."

The admiral took a breath, before continuing.

"I'm sorry. I have failed you. Through our enemy's treachery, our men lie dead, our ships float, burning, and our pride has been trampled. It is my fault that we have failed to overcome this trial. Therefore I have to ask something from you all right now."

Admiral Lito looked up, her sharp eyes drilled out of the window ahead of her.

"Do you still trust me?"

Her question hung in the air and in the hearts of every man and woman in her fleet. Silence spread around the ship, around the fleet even. On every ship, the tension was suffocating. Many of the ship's bridge crew looked at one another, frowns on their face. Admiral Lito saw and felt all of this, and closed her eyes in defeat. It would mean the death of all of them, then.

Admiral Lito stood up, her hat tipped down. She did not want to look at the men she lost her trust from. Then a clattering noise startled her. The admiral's eyes snapped to the source of the sound.

A yeoman had shot up, knocking over his chair.

"Always, Admiral!" He saluted. His hand was quivering with fear, but his young eyes were resolute. Then, one of her senior officers stood up, and saluted right after him.

"Always, Admiral!"

More of them. What once was a trickle started a flood. Every last one of the crew members of the bridge stood up to salute and confirm their loyalty. From her intercom, the reverberating shouts of every last one of the crew of her tattered fleet shouted their unwavering trust in her; despite her failures. Their shouts formed wave after wave emotions filling loyalty, responsibility, and trust. All on her shoulders, Irelia realized. She wouldn't have it any other way.

Kayle crossed her arms, a grin plastered all over her face. The holographic angel looked relieved. Her eyes seemed to sigh as she spoke her mind, too.

"You don't even need to ask, our admiral."

As the shouts of support flooded over her, Admiral Lito sat back down, satisfied. A smile almost crept onto her face. She tipped her hat up.

"Then please, follow my orders exactly."

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

The Lord of Admiral stood up. his eyes were absorbed in the spectacle that the holographic diagram in front of him was presenting. His eyes glistened as he watched the Admiral Lito's last desperation tactic unfold in front of him. It was like Christmas for him.

"Lito, Lito, Lito." The Lord of Admirals leaned down, staring at the plummeting blue dots marking the ULN fleet in front of him. "what are you doing now?"

* * *

At nearly a forty-five degree angle, the Infinity Edge plunged downwards towards the atmosphere of Entropy. The ship was not aero-dynamic in the least; being designed for interplanetary, not aerospace travel. The result was a tremendous shuddering of the ship that made flying upon it seem like hitching a ride in a five-kilo long washing machine. Behind the ULN flagship, every member of the ship's fleet, plunging straight back to earth with her.

Meanwhile, in the deep, dark, tremulous depths of the Infinity Edge, Talon threw up his whiskey over his bed. While the headhunter retched, over a dozen of his knives spilled out of his bunk and buried themselves in a patch of steel wall six inches from Riven's head, and gave her a slight shave, but despite the commotion, still she slept on. Vayne was holding her legs, muttering and cursing while the world spinned around her, and even Lieutenant Yi's eyes, behind his ocular mask, were open and alert during the disturbance.

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

The bridge of the Infinity edge was trembling. Every surface of the ship was rattling like it was trying to shake itself loose. The crew desperately tried to multi-task running the ship while not falling over from all the vibrations.

"A-a-a-a-admiral!" Kayle called out, her voice resonating in pitch from the ship. "Approaching Entropy atmosphere in four-five seconds! Our ship is rated for only ten-thousand meters off of sea level, maximum!"

"W-w-e'll go double below that!" Irelia called out confidently. She somehow managed to key her mike despite it shaking from one patch of steel to the next on her chair. "A-a-all ships! Be advised! Ignore safety regulations concerning low-level planetary orbit and proceed to five thousand units above SEL! Make sure you get the cloud cover over you!" Irelia called out to her fleet, who was following her lead into the depths of the atmosphere of Entropy. "If they get visual confirmation, this whole pretty trick's shot!"

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

"_Blade of the Ruined King_!"

The Lord of Admirals called out in his mike. "Enemy fleet is attempting to escape through our Entropy's atmosphere! Burn them down before they can get away!"

Thresh appeared at the Lord of Admirals side.

"My Lord, we are unable to target the enemy fleet with our weapons. The same magnetic field that we used to hide _Blade of the Ruined King_ on Entropy is interfering with our targeting systems. Currently, accuracy rate is at five percent and dropping. Within thirty seconds we will also lose visual confirmation of the enemy fleet."

The Lord of Admirals growled. This tactic of running away from his toys was starting to get old, fast.

"Lito will probably pop up right below _The Ravenous Hydra_ and take us out with her if we give her the chance. Plot a vector for the _Blade of the Ruined King_ to link up with the main fleet, and move _The Ravenous Hydra_ to our rear echelon." The Lord of Admirals typed in some swift commands on his console. "Thresh, I want a targeting solution for every gun on our fleet for every square hundred-miles on Entropy that the enemy fleet can come out of within the minute. Warm up our MACs; the instant an ULN rat pokes its head out of it's hiding hole, I want it burning!"

"Lito..." The Admiral grit his teeth, staring into the holographic green sea that was the planet of Entropy below. "I'll get you this time..."

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

"Kayle! You think we're hidden well enough!"

Kayle popped out of the holodeck, wiping her forehead. A useless indicator for a hologram, but she liked reminding Lito how hard she worked all the time.

"Absolutely. Entropy's high reserves of Knutoium have created a naturally shielding magnetic field. Just in case, I've ghosted a couple of our legitimate signals and bounced them off of random vectors away from our fleet."

Kayle stepped forwards, staring out at the pure white clouds of Entropy that their window now beheld. It actually was quite the pretty planet.  
"In fact, it's almost unsurprising that they managed to build something as big as that Dreadnought if they had this kind of cover to work on and a couple of years. Excellent. Can't wait to build our own little toy once we've conquered this rock."

Irelia smiled. Kayle spouting useless crap was always a good sign on her ship.

"Good. Well then." Admiral Lito typed in the command keys to unlock their ship's Faster-Than Light travel drives. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

"Milord!" The whisper officer shouted as an alert popped onto his screen. "Enemy energy spikes detected in sector 5636-BF! Signatures match that of a ULN fleet's FTL drives! They're... they're fleeing!"

The Lord of Admirals growled. Was Lito really running away? That would be a first. The Lord of Admirals turned to call on his ship's AI.

"Thresh! All guns on that sector!"

Thresh appeared at his side.

"My Lord, even with the enemy sector confirmed, our entire firing solution has only a 0.04% probability of hitting anything."  
The Lord of Admirals grit his teeth, annoyed. The impertinent AI still dared talk back to him. The Lord of Admirals turned to stare daggers into the insubordinate AI. Though the construct did not flinch, Du Couteau knew that it knew whose master it served.

"Fire. Everything."

* * *

Shockwaves started raining down from the sky. First the MAC rounds, tiny in the scope of a planet, but each still with the energy of a nuclear bomb, slammed into Entropy's ocean, drilling through the water like it was made of cotton, and sending shockwaves rippling through the half-frozen sea miles long. Then missiles and mines started raining down, scattered through the sector, but they were sparse and slow; barely more threatening to the ships than snow.

Admiral Lito smiled at this. The Lord of Admirals was getting desperate.

"Admiral!" An officer nodded, and then looked up to Admiral Lito. "Just received confirmation! All ships confirmed FTL vectors and are ready to launch!"

"Good. Tell them to all jump on my mark!"

Admiral Lito strapped herself in, and counted down the seconds. Still, all around her from her window, she could still she the pillars of water formed by the plunging MAC rounds, and the rain of missiles that were dwindling one-by one.

"Three... two.. one..."

Admiral Lito gripped the lever to the _Infinity Edge_'s FTL drives.

"Mark!"

She slammed the lever forwards.

And all around her, one-by-one the ULN fleet jumped out of the atmosphere of Entropy, leaving an explosion-like shockwave from the displacement of the air, and only waves of sea in their wake. First in the air there was the might of one of the greatest fleets in the galaxy, and then there was nothing.

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

Du Couteau stood at his holodeck, furious that Lito was getting away. yet he could do nothing but watch her mock him in the wake of her egress, as his prey fled like sheep. One by one, the blue mist that marked where the enemy ships were hiding in Entropy's mists faded, until the blue had turned into nothing more than a solid gray. That did it. They had all fled. The Lord of Admirals growled, as his whisper officer confirmed the energy signatures of the ULN warping away. Du Couteau closed his eyes in frustration.

"Damn you Lito... I had you..."

A clear, sharp voice cut into his Captain's Bridge, laughing. It was an outside radio transmission. Full spectrum. But radio waves had a limited range, and the only other outside party that had been here was-

"...Lito" The Lord of Admirals breathed. Her clear, noble voice swept through his ships like a wave. He could almost see her disgusting smirk as she gloated.

"Surprise...Du Couteau!"

Her voice was coming in clear and without delay, so she must be within radio range, at least two hundred kilometers near his ship. That means she's close by. But where the hell did she warp... too... He glanced at the form of his enourmous dreadnought that dominated the hologprahic battlefield in front of him.

The Lord of Admirals sucked in a breath as he realized exactly where Lito had jumped to.

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

Lito leaned forwards in her chair, a grin plastered all over her face. Oh, how she wished she could see the look on the great and dignified Lord of Admiral's face now.

All around her, her ships were coming into view once more. She bet the Noxians thought she had fled, but they hadn't warped out of combat- they just warped from one hiding spot to another.  
From the depths of the misty atmosphere of Entropy's atmosphere, their ships plotted a vector straight to..

The shadow along the underside of the Noxian Dreadnought. The enormous capital ship was more than large enough to accommodate the bulk of the ULN fleet. Every ULN ship had reduced radiation to nothing, even lights, shields and engines, making their ships practically invisible to anyone not looking directly at them.

And their position put placed them with a clear shot straight at the enemy flagship. They had a chance, finally. To finally destroy the _Ravenous Hydra_.Admiral Lito couldn't wait. She tipped her hat up, her eyes gleaming with energy. A slash of a smile split on her face, revealing pure white teeth. The Shining Sword of the ULN Fleet was back in business now.

"You've had your fun, Du Couteau. Now it's our turn."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_****, 1830 hours**

"Look at them, Kayle." Admiral Lito chuckled, her hands on her hips. She stood at the base of the Command Bridge's window; the entire might of an entire Noxia fleet splayed out in front of her. All of them were executing some elaborate dance with their massive ships in order to position themselves into something other than the 'Sitting Ducks' formation. "Poor souls. They're trying so hard."

A smirk crept on her face as she amused herself watching the supercruiser _The Bloodthirster_ almost collide with their allied carrier _Warhog's Horde_ in their frantic efforts to respond to their own surprise jump into the middle of their fleet. The long nose of the supercruiser stripped off half of the guiding relays affixed to the top of Warmog's Horde in their clumsiness to flip the entire supercruiser around.

"Kayle? Status on firing solutions?"  
AI Kayle squeezed in a final few taps of her armored fingers. The holographic angel looked up. A smile split on her handsome face.

"All done, ma'am!"  
"Coverage?"  
"Hundred by hundred, admiral!"  
"Good." Admiral step back to take one last look at the Noxia fleet. Even though they were in the midst of the enemy, and in the shadow of a hostile vessel that dwarfed their entire fleet combined, Admiral Lito felt no fear. Despite taking incredible, irreplaceable losses, there was no more doubt in the Admiral's mind that she would lose. Her men were behind her. And she still had a mission- she still had that man to kill.

She would not fall here. Not until she had finally delivered justice. She felt no fear. Only determination.  
"Then fire at will!"  
"Aye aye," Kayle confirmed, transmitting the attack order to every last one of the ULN fleet. Green confirmation lights lit up from each of the holographic dots on the holodeck that signified their ships. Everyone was ready. "Admiral!"

From their solar eastern flank, the cruisers _Shard of True Ice_ and _Mercurial _immediately opened fire on the enemy shield ship, _Randuin's Omen,_ the force of their MAC rounds punching through the shield ship's personal shields as if they were made of no more than paper. Explosions and fire erupted from the two gaping holes left in the body of the vessel, and it started to slip downwards, falling out of orbit.

From their north, Hurricane let loose the entire rest of her fighter squads, who took the liberty of peppering the massive underside of the _Blade of the Ruined King_, targeting the missile pods and gun batteries littered all about the Dreadnought's side with expert precision. The torpedos spread from the fighter's wing bays like demented flowers, each of them splitting into a dozen different mines that slammed into the surface defenses along the_ Blade of the Ruined King_, disabling them.

Without the weapons batteries along the side of the _Blade of the Ruined King_, it might as well have been a floating paperweight. The captain of the Dreadnought fired up reverse thrusters, but a ship of that size could hardly turn on a dime.

Which meant...

Admiral Lito raised her hand, and speared the image of the Noxian flagship, _The Ravenous Hydra_, with her finger. Her eyes were narrowed with determination now.

"Fire on Du Couteau!"  
A quadruple burst of MAC rounds; the benefits of fielding such a large ship like the Infinity Edge, shot towards the Noxian flagship with deadly force. There were three shots aimed toward the dead center of the enemy supercruiser. Yet through either skill or luck- The Ravenous Hydra twisted away, suffering only minor damage along secondary structures. The MAC rounds grazed the hull of the flagship; scorching the metal, melting meter-thick Ferric-Aradium, but missing any vital organs.

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

"Ugnh!" The Lord of Admirals grunted from the ship shock. He gripped the edge of his throne as his castle of a ship shuddered from the impact of the MAC rounds. Many of his crew were sprawled about the Captain's Bridge, cursing, weeping, or praying. Pitiful fools. The tremors were enough to strike the fear of death into any normal man- but he was no ordinary man!

The Lord of Admirals recovered himself, keeping a death grip on his Captain's seat in case another tremor struck.

"Thresh! Damage report!"  
The AI did not come out this time; only a dozen different diagrams of the ship's affected areas popped up from the holodisplay in front of him. Du Couteau's sharp eyes travelled swiftly over the diagrams, calculating.

Thresh's voice emanated from the diagrams, elaborating for his master.  
"My Lord, engines are down to 45% thrust. Shields are at 32%. Structural damage along the north-east-east spinal axis and the south-south-west rib axis. Damage not crippling but immediate repairs are highly recommended."

The diagrams closed, replaced by the standing image of Thresh. The chained warden was as impassive as ever. Yet resignation managed to creep through even Thresh's stoic demeanor. Everyone knew they were defeated.

"The battle is lost, My Lord."  
Du Couteau leaned forwards, sweating slightly.  
"Our faster than light travel capabilities?" His entire plan hinged on this. If their FTL drives were disabled by the last attack, he might as well blow up the nuke hidden on their ship right then. The admiral watched the diagrams intently.

"Functional, but not optimal. They'll take five minutes to warm up."  
"...Hah." The Lord of Admirals looked up. "Make that four minutes, Thresh, or I swear I'll trash your code."  
"Yes, My Lord."  
A dark, malicious grin spread across the Lord of Admirals' face.

"Fire them up immediately. Lito's not the only one who can play tricks with wrap drives."

Du Couteau looked up out the viewport of his Captain's Bridge, relief visible on his strong face; and maliciousness glinting in his dark eyes. The Lord of Admirals ran his hand through his slightly sweaty thick brown hair, laughing. He almost couldn't believe it. It worked. This entire gambit with raising a monster in the bowels of his flagship, fighting a losing battle on Entropy, pushing Lito to the absolute limit of her capabilities to mask any hint of his true intention, was such an enormous risk- yet now, phase two of his master plan was now in play.

The man looked up at the faraway silhouette of the _Infinity Edge_, still thrusting towards them from under the cover of his own Dreadnought. The dark glint in his eyes was shining brighter than ever.

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

An alert popped up on Kayle's monitor, who read it for a moment. Her eyes widened.  
"Admiral!" Kayle leapt from the holodeck to Admiral Lito's side, carrying the report. "Enemy FTL energy signatures detected! It's from _The Ravenous Hydra_!"

Admiral Lito looked at the report, her brow furrowed. She trashed the memo with a grimace on her face.  
"Damn Du Couteau. Come up with your own strategy for once!" Lito turned to her AI. "Kayle, what's the cooldown on our MAC rounds?"

"They're still cycling power coils, admiral! It'll be another ten minutes, and _The Ravenous Hydra_ will be able to warp in five!"  
Irelia leaned forwards, her eyes frantic. All of her goodwill from before evaporated from the thought that her hated nemesis might get away once more. This was a chance of a lifetime. She would not let Du Couteau slip away this time!

"Missiles?!" The admiral inquired, "Gun batteries?!"  
"Operational, but out of range!"  
"Get in range!

"But admiral!" Kayle glanced up at the shadow that loomed above them. They had disabled all of the surface weapon decks on this side of the ship- but everywhere else on the dreadnought-  
"If we move forwards, we will be in range of the enemy dreadnought's defense systems!"

"Move forwards! We can't let Du Couteau get away!" Irelia turned to stare at Kayle, a snarl forming on her face. "Adjutant! I gave you an order!" The fleet admiral's eyes were growing dangerous once more, and Kayle felt an irrational fear strike her virtual heart. The AI took an involuntary step back.  
"A...Aye-aye, Captain."  
The Admiral swept her hand at the _The Ravenous Hydra_, which was floating motionless in front of them.  
"Full speed ahead!"

In space, the _Infinity Edge_ shot forwards from under _Blade of the Ruined King_'s shadow, her engines burning at maximum speed. Despite a flood of missiles and shells that erupted from the dreadnought to them from above, still the _Infinity Edge_ charged, shrugging off Archer missiles and HEAT rounds like they were nothing more than raindrops. The ULN ship's shields glistened and burned bright from the impacts of the Noxian artillery, but somehow, despite all odds, they held. And that left a clear path straight towards the vulnerable The Ravenous Hydra.

Two minutes left until the Noxian flagship's FTL drives were ready.  
Forty-eight seconds until _Infinity Edge_'s main gun batteries would come in range.

* * *

**Captain's Bridge, ****_HLS The Ravenous Hydra_**

"Milord!" Shouted a yeoman, tracking a rapidly approaching dot on the holodeck. "Enemy advance! Supercruiser _Infinity Edge_ plotting an intercept vector straight for us! They'll be in range in t-minus 30!"  
"Hm." The Lord of Admirals had to give it to Lito. She was just as bull-headedly stubborn as he always knew her. And now he was in a tight spot. The Lord of Admirals had one last card to play, and he made his decision in an instant.  
"Thresh!" Du Couteau called out, without a trace of hesitation in his voice. "Slave controls from _The Bloodthirster_ to central command!"

The chained warden bowed, then shimmered out of existence. After only a few seconds, the virtualized demon returned, holding a key. "My Lord," Thresh bent down, offering the key. "The controls to our supercruiser _The Bloodthirster_, are yours."

"Excellent. Fire up _The Bloodthirster_'s afterburners and divert all power from it's shields to it's engines... No, in fact, divert ALL power to it's engines. Spare no power to anything else." The Lord of Admirals glanced at Thresh. His eyes were gleaming again. "Not even life support. Then plot a vector putting it between us and Lito as quickly as possible. "

Thresh paused for a moment, and the horrible slits in his mask-like face widened, as if to appreciate the ruthlessness of the master he had chosen.

"They will be our sacrificial shield, My Lord?"  
"Are you troubled, Thresh? Is not everything permitted in war?"

Thresh digested this. Then, with something almost like a smile on his mask-face, Thresh bowed, muttering a last 'my lord' before seizing control of _The Bloodthirster_ and carrying out his orders.

In the emptiness of space, _The Bloodthirster_ lurched forwards. Thrusters embedded all over the body of the ship fired in rapid succession, sending the Noxian supercruiser into death spiral towards T_he Ravenous Hydra _and the approaching _Infinity Edge._ No longer burdened by the shackles of having to support the fading lives of her passengers, _The Bloodthirster_ raced towards the two opposing flagships with unprecedented speed. No more power flowed to the systems to maintain liveable temperatures on the decks, no more energy invested into the kinetic shields of the ship.

Before the _Infinity Edge_ could react, they were blocked off by the racing form of the now-lifeless _The Bloodthirster._

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_**

"Enemy advance!" Kayle shouted. It was unnecessary, however. Irelia could see perfectly clear. The enemy_ The Bloodthirster_ had flung itself in front of their ship, blocking off their line of fire. It was a desperate move, but it would be enough. Even a ship like the _Infinity Edge _didn't stock enough firepower to blow through a supercruiser in time to catch _The Ravenous Hydra_ before it warped. Admiral Lito grit her teeth.

"Admiral!" Kayle glanced at the timer that was the estimate until _The Ravenous Hydra_'s FTL drives could be fired. "Thirty seconds left until enemy warp drives engage!"

Irelia looked up from under her cap. Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed the fast-approaching _The Bloodthirster_. Her rough, cracked hands gripped the armrests of her captain's seat._ She would not let him get away this time, _she vowed once more. Her grip tightened.

"Shields on full!" Admiral Lito shouted, her eyes blazing, her voice stern and powerful, "RAMMING SPEED!"  
Kayle turned to her superior in shock.  
"Admiral?!"

"We'll cut straight THROUGH them to get to Du Couteau!"  
Kayle hesitated for only a moment. Then her eyes met the Admiral's.  
"Aye aye, Captain."  
Kayle nodded, before turning to the bridge assembly about her. The virtual angel stood up straight and confident as she issued the order to the crew. Her eyes made it clear to the hands on deck that she trusted the admiral. The reassurance in her eyes animated the crew. They would do this. They would trust the admiral.

"Shields to 140%! Thrusters on full! Moment of impact, ten seconds! All hands, brace for impact!"  
"Brace for impact!" Someone on the deck shouted, and everyone scrambled to find something to hold onto.

_The Infinity Edge_ raced forwards on its collision course with _The Bloodthirster_, its shields shining brightly as her technicians inside overclocked the generators to over-capacity. In contrast, the enemy supercruiser hung lifeless in front of them, oblivious to the impending impact. No shields shone bright on her. No thrusters fired to evade the brute-force attack. _The Bloodthirster_ had sacrificed power to her shields for speed in Thresh's haste to put her between _The Ravenous Hydra_ and the _Infinity Edge.  
_

Which meant...

Admiral Lito raised her hands as the metal surface of the body of _The Bloodthirster _raced up to the window of the Command Bridge to meet them. As she sat, eyes rapt to the rapidly approaching sea of metal, she imagined that she could spot the individual noxian symbols painted onto the hard, gray hull. Her eyes involuntarily snapped shut as the hull was about to collide with the ship-

Then the shields kicked in.

"AAAAAH!"

Irelia yelled, shielding her eyes away from the searing light. The_ Infinity Edge_'s shields burned as white as snow, the hexa-plating of the kinetic shields struggling to overcome the three meter thick Ferric-Aradium that made up the frame of _The Bloodthirster_. The shields ground through the steel, propelled by the main drive thrusters at the back of the _Infinity Edge_. Dozens of alarms popped up on nearly every terminal on the bridge, flashing red and whooping to attract attention, but none of the crew were in any position to handle them. The_ Infinity Edge _shuddered; and for an instant it seemed as if the ULN flagship would not make it through.

_No, _Irelia vowed. _I won't let you get away, Du Couteau!_  
"COME ON YOU BASTA*RD!" Admiral Lito roaredto the searing white light. "BREAK! DIE!"

And, as if by command, something gave inside _The Bloodthirster. The Infinity Edge _lurched forwards, a trickle giving way to a flood, and bit by bit, more and more of _The Bloodthirster_'s structures fell away, ground to atomic dust by the ULN flagship's kinetic shields.

"COME ON!"  
_The Infinity Edge_ was gaining momentum. A great snapping sound could be heard roaring from inside _The Bloodthirster,_ the noise carrying even through the vacuum of space. The entire crew was thrown backwards as their ship suddenly shot forwards. It was coming. _The Bloodthirster_, great and as powerful as she was, was at her limit.

"GO!"

The _Infinity _gave one final push. And with a final, screeching wail, the front and back halves of _The Bloodthirster _tore away, spinning off into orbits. Through a cloud of shrapnel, corpses, and machinery, the _Infinity Edge_ punched through to race towards the fleeing Noxian flagship.  
_  
Finally... a clear shot!_  
Admiral Lito was the first to recover. She stood up tall and proud. With a flourish, she swept her hand forwards at vulnerable _The Ravenous Hydra_. Her eyes were blazing with determination as her ship raced forwards towards it's final confrontation.

"Fire everything!"  
"Firing all ordinance!" A weapons solution officer called out, relaying the order to every weapons deck crew. "Aye!"  
All over the Infinity Edge, gun hatches opened up to reveal missile pods, gun batteries, and torpedo pods. From their mouths, a firestorm of explosive warheads, armor-piercing shells, and electromagnetic pulse emitting torpedos raced each other to tear towards the Noxian flagship. It would only take an instant for them to connect, and it would all be over-

But the Lord of Admirals was one step ahead.  
"Too late," Du Couteau muttered, pulling the lever to his ship's FTL drive. "...Lito!"

And with that,_ The Ravenous Hydra_ slipped into another dimension, shimmering out of existence and barely escaped the barrage of missiles launched at it. Their target lost, the warheads and shells simply deactivated, and floated uselessly forwards into space. Everything was very quiet all of a sudden. No more shots were fired. No more death raged about them. The battle was won.

Kayle looked up, and confirmed to the Command Bridge the surrender signals of both the crews of the _Blade of the Ruined King_ as well as the _Randuin's Omen_. A lone shout shot out from the Bridge, and soon the entire crew was cheering, throwing their hats into the air.

Admiral Lito collasped back onto her seat.

_The battle was won,_ Lito told herself. _She didn't get Du Couteau... but she would soon, _she told herself once more. Sighing amongst her celebrating crew, she buried her face in her hands, sinking in her captain's chair, more defeated than ever. If she really did win the battle...

_Then why do I feel like I've lost?_

* * *

**2nd Division ULNA Barracks, ****_ULSS Infinity Edge_****, 2140 Hours**

Riven was alone in the ULN marine locker room, slipping her Headhunter suit on. Piece by piece, she stripped down to her underwear. Once she was done, she slipped into the black full body suit that Team Dark used. It was mostly battle cloth armor- micro-teflon coils woven in a hexabinary pattern to keep bullets from penetrating the flesh underneath. There were patches of chain scales over suitable areas- her chest, her arms, and her thighs, but by and large her suit was not intended for heavy combat.

This made it light, and easy to move in, but fragile to heavy weapons or knives. Riven flexed her protected hands experimentally. her joints rotated with ease. Not too different from her old uniform, then. She didn't know whether she preferred that or not.

"Hey cutie." A deep voice, followed by a heavy hand on her shoulder, startled Riven. "Anyone ever tell you that purple would suit you better?"  
The private had the hand in her grip in a flash, and she raised it over her head before twisting her body in what should have thrown the offender over her shoulder and into the metal lockers in front. Should have. When she tried to throw the man over her shoulder, her back only collided with cold, hard metal, and she couldn't even lift him off the ground.

"Hey, now. Let's play rough after we've been acquainted."  
Riven swivelled her head to face the man behind her.

A handsome man smiled back. His square jaw framed his bulky body, all of which was wrapped in a full-metal power suit. His eyes shone in the locker room light, but Riven inwardly shuddered under their gaze. It was shallow beneath those forget-me not blues.  
"...don't touch me."  
"couldn't stop me if you tried, cutie. But alright, since I'm such a nice guy-" The man lifted his armored hand, raising it defensively. "You like my power armor? It's one of my latest designs. Power thrusters, personal shields, you name it, it's got it."

"...who are you?"  
"Ha!" The man playfully slapped his forehead, wincing in mock pain. "I'm such an idiot-"  
"True that," Riven muttered.  
"-I forgot to introduce myself." The man put out his metal-wrapped hand, his smile revealing white teeth. "I'm Lance Corporal, William Jayce Westmoreland. I'm the leader of the Royal Headhunters. You might know us as the best of the bunch."

Riven didn't take the hand, instead staring coldly back at the man.

"Ok." Riven turned back to clip up the last bit of her uniform, her eyes closed with annoyance. "Go away, William Jayce Westmoreland."  
"Now hold on a minute here," The lance corporal persisted. He sidled over and put his hand on the locker, hovering over Riven. "I didn't catch your name there. I think I'd remember someone as cute as you."  
Riven sighed, and flexed her fingers. She wondered whether this dolt's head was as hard as his armor. It would be a pleasure to find out.

A deep, guttural voice cut across her thoughts.  
"What are you doing, Rookie... with this _y'sheelee_?"

A low growling filled the room. Jayce flinched and looked toward the entrance. He seemed to back away from Riven for a moment, lifting his hand off of the locker. But the indefatigable lance corporal bounced back immediately, a smile plastering his face once more.

"Hey, Furry! It's been, what, eight months? Too long!"

Riven looked up. Captain Rengar filled the locker room's doorway, his rough, scored armor scraping against the metal lips as the massive Yautja slouched through. His eyes were narrowed, his lips were drawn slightly back to reveal stout, sharp fangs. It was abundantly clear that his mood was less than perfect. Every step the beast took left a deep, heavy thud in it's wake.

"Leave, _y'sheelee_" Rengar stalked closer and closer, but not to Jayce. "Before my axe finds your throat."  
"Ha. Good luck getting to this _yeeseelee_'s throat with my new power armor. With this, and my latest Mercury weapons system, I wouldn't give you five minutes in the ring with me." Jayce shrugged in a self-satisfied way. "Just admit it- Team Dark's history, Furry."

Rengar turned away from the man, his long thick braids shifting away. His yellow eyes held nothing but contempt in their depths.

"We leave, Rookie."  
The Captain slouched out of the locker room, bidding Riven to follow. This Riven was more than happy to do. She finished packing her gear into her duffel bag, and slung it over her shoulder in one practised motion. She followed the Yautja captain closely, sparing not a glance for the rival Headhunter leader.

"You all might have had us beat slightly before, Captain Furry- but we've got all kinds of new tech now! Flamethrowers, advanced stealth systems, you name it, we have you beat!" Jayce leaned over to call out to Riven.  
"You hear that cutie? You're welcome to play with our toys at our place!"

Riven let out a sigh of relief when the sliding door to the locker room sealed, cutting off the lance corporal's noise. Wordlessly, she stepped past her captain. She didn't know what was in the captain's mind right now- better to stay out of his way. She picked up the pace slightly, speeding up to turn the corner as quickly as possible.

"Rookie." A soft growl cut in. Riven stopped. She licked her lips. Was this bad?

She fingered her bag, feeling the familiar weight of her most hated, most important item she had. With it- she wasn't totally defenseless at the moment- but using it would shatter her vow.  
Riven looked up to face her captain.  
"We don't talk with the Royals," Rengar eyed the private carefully. Riven had expected his eyes to be angry... but in them held no malice. "Understand?"

Riven knew then. This was a test.

Riven considered the situation carefully. What would Luce or Crow have done? Apologized, maybe. They always seemed to act cowed around their massive captain, and Riven didn't blame them. But they always got beat up at their first slip.

_What would Commander Yi do? _Riven pondered, he never got beat up.

He would stand up to the Captain.  
But the Lieutenant was incredibly strong. He could stand up to whomever he wanted.  
_Did the Captain value strength of body, or of mind, then?_ Riven chewed her lip. No, that didn't make sense. If he valued only physical strength there'd be no point in testing her in the first place. He wants to see how I would react.

Then she would have to take the risk.

"...didn't want to anyways." Riven stated back as confidently as she could. The massive Yautja was still scary, and Riven wasn't sure this was what the Captain wanted- but as long as she carried that item in her bag, she probably wouldn't be killed.  
"And next time, I don't need you to baby me. I can handle guys like him by myself."

Rengar slouched forwards, his lion's face impassive. The Yautja came up until he was right next to Riven, then bent down to stare into her eyes. Bright, yellow eyes met soft grey ones. The bestial captain's eyes narrowed as he peered into Riven's. The private gulped slightly. _Did it work?_

"Hm." Rengar stood back up. His eyes shifted away to elsewhere, and without another word, he lumbered away.  
Riven waited patiently until the captain's heaving steps faded into the darkness of the corridors.

"..."

Then with an explosive sigh, Riven fell to her knees. She looked down, and found her hands quivering uncontrollably.  
_That was harder than she realized._  
But a grin flickered across her face, as her shaking faded away.

"I'm living my new life," Riven said out loud. "I'm changed."  
Her words sounded hollow even to herself, but even so, she had this small victory to bear.  
She slowly picked herself up, and walked off to the hangar bays. Her first mission was waiting for her.

* * *

**Command Bridge, ****_ULSS Infini_**_**ty**_** Edge,** **0240 Hours**

The Admiral was standing by herself in front of her window again. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her hat was tipped low over her eyes. Once again, Kayle silently joined her side. The AI had just come back from a ship-wide party being held in the hangar bays. She didn't particularly like parties; but the thrill of interacting with humans was always the highlight of her job. Yet one person was notably absent- the Admiral of course. And as soon as Kayle noticed the good Admiral missing from the festivities, she knew exactly where to find her.

Kayle mimicked the Admiral's posture, folding her hands underneath the wings on her back. It was her way of passively mocking the Admiral's occasional austerity.

"A crushing victory, captain."

Was it? The Admiral pondered. Lito didn't respond.

Instead, Irelia stared out tthe window as the charred remains of what once was _The Bloodthirster _bounced harmlessly off of the neosteel of her ship. She wondered how many of those blackened pieces floating about in the cold vacuum of space were once people. And of how many more it would take to end this war.  
_This will not end yet, _Lito knew.

"Not yet, Kayle." Admiral Lito turned around and fell back, lying on the plate glass. She closed her eyes, leaned back, and tipped her admiral's hat down. "The Lord of Admirals escaped. As long as he's alive, Noxia will keep fighting."  
"I beg to differ, admiral." Kayle pulled up a holographic diagram of the Noxian flagship; dozens of red warnings and symbols littered the surface of the virtual model. "Lord of Admirals Du Couteau barely escaped with his life, Ma'am. _The Ravenous Hydra_ limped away with almost catastrophic structural damage. The damage from our MAC rounds was severe, to say the least- her remaining functioning engines were running at only 65% capacity and I detected multiple atmospheric leaks along dozens of distinct locations."

Kayle closed the diagram. Admiral Lito got the point. "Simply put, I wouldn't be surprised if _The Ravenous Hydra _simply fell apart trying to get away."

"Barely escaped with his life." Irelia hissed out, quoting the Ai's own words. "Almost catastrophic. The man I've duelled with for over seven years, Kayle, would not fall to 'barely' or 'almost'. The Lord of Admirals is alive, and I intend to change that."  
The admiral pulled her hat up a fraction of an inch to stare Kayle in the face. The admiral's sharp, hard eyes, simmering with cold rage, drilled into the construct. The AI recoiled a few millimeters, despite the fact that it was beyond irrational to fear a physical being when Kayle existed as data in cyberspace. It was not possible that she could hurt me, Kayle tried to tell herself. Still, Kayle felt it. Fear.  
"Kayle. Operation Broken Knife is on standby, right? Send out the Headhunters."

Kayle paused. The AI had thought the Lord of Admirals to be finished- but she had not remembered to inform the Headhunter teams that their mark was most likely dead. They were probably prepared to leave right now.

Still, what could be the harm in checking? It would also give that Captain Rengar something to do and put a couple hundred light-years in between us and him once he finds his target already dead. The man was already enough trouble when he was in a regular mood. Kayle didn't want to think about what that Yautja would do if he lost his temper.

"...Aye aye, admiral. Beginning operation Broken Knife at 1670 hours, on my mark." Kayle drew up a holographic timer starting from 6 seconds and winding down. The admiral and the AI watched the numbers descend intently. "... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Mark."  
The construct then tapped into some controls.

On the other side of the I_nfinity Edge_, a ship hundreds of times smaller than her mother supercruiser, but still the size of a multi-storied building, detached from the hull. The smaller ship fired up whisper-quiet engines; dark as night and with less radiation than most cell phones. It shot off into space, following the trail of ship atmosphere that The Ravenous Hydra left behind as it jumped away. A ULN _Kinkou_-class shuttle slunk off stealthily into the night, carrying on board, two veteran Headhunter teams, a squad of ULN marines, ranging from Yautja to cyborgs to humans, and even a wet-behind the ears, fresh, greenhorn rookie. Named Rook Riven.

* * *

**ULNA ****_Kinkou-_****class Shuttle 528A, 0430 hours**

They were gathered in the lobby of the shuttle, strapped to their seats for the next nineteen hours by heavy safety bars that wrapped over their chests like a roller coaster ride. Riven was seated next to Luce Vayne at the very end of the shuttle. In front of her was a full squad of ULN marines, to her right, the rest of Team Dark was strapped in likewise. Fortunately, Team Royal was seated in the next row of seats, so Riven didn't have to bear with the good Lance Corporal for nineteen hours straight. The wink he gave Riven as they passed each other while boarding was more than enough of him that Riven could take.

She lay back, and readied herself for another nap, knowing that with her sleep cycle, nothing would bother her for the remainder of the flight.

Then the shuttle lurched, rocking everyone sideways. Normally this wouldn't have been enough to bother her, but her duffel bag tumbled from her hands in the impact. The black pack slid across the corrugated floor along the side, as Riven flailed for it.

"Ugh!" The strap slipped from her hands at the last second. Her fingers grasped only thin air.

Then a hand shot forwards, and snatched it from the floor. A low chuckle cut in from the owner of the hand that caught the bag.  
"Still dropping stuff," the man sitting next to her ribbed, weighing the pack in his hand by the strap. "eh Rookie?"  
The man turned to smile at her, his ocular mask dominating his face.  
"Lieutenant!"  
"Don't get careless now. That'll get you killed." Yi bounced the bag in his hands. His grin turned into a slight frown. He caught the bag firmly, and turned it a bit on it side. His frown deepened. "This bag is about four kilos too heavy. I know you're new, Rookie, but how could you overpack like this?"

Yi unzipped the pack, still frowning.  
Riven's eyes widened.

"W-wait!"  
Yi stopped. Then looked down at the hand that had grabbed his forearm. Riven's. It took Riven a second to realize that she had lunged forwards to seize Yi's arm.  
"Please... wait, Sir."  
"...what's in this bag, Rookie?" Yi didn't back down. "We're about to embark on a dangerous mission, with too many unknown variables. If I can't trust you, I can't fight. I'm your superior officer, and I need to know."

Yi turned to stare at Riven. His lenses drilled into her.  
Slowly, she let her hand down.

"...Thank you, Rookie." Yi reached in, and pulled out a flashlight, a water flask, some medical supplies and... His fingers brushed on something hard, wrapped in rough paper. Not a gun, or any ordinary tool that Yi knew of. He gripped the package, and pulled it out of the pack. It was about the size of the base of the bag, around two and a half feet long. And a half foot wide. Underneath, Yi could feel the solid, giving form of what seemed to be a handle. Slowly, carefully, he unwrapped the item.

The paper fell away, revealing a blade. Yi drew a short breath. A broken blade, shattered a foot and a half from it's hilt. The design was unmistakably Noxian, but of a cut higher in quality than most blades manufactured from the empire. The Lieutenant studied the blade carefully. It was almost unbelievable that such a sturdy sword of have been broken. The metal was runic black stone- a rare, proud element that was nearly indestructible, yet equally difficult to craft with. Even so, the insides of what once was a proud, massive blade shone, now exposed to the elements, while an inscription in what was symbols of the High Noxian dialect was carved into the blade, half of the word shattered away from whatever broke it.

Yi turned the blade on it's side to read the inscription. His Noxian was pretty bad, but he could manage a few symbols.

"...ngel?" Yi frowned. "What's the full name of-"

"It's name is Traitor." Riven stated out flatly. Her knees were drawn to her chest, and she was breathing more heavily than before. Her eyes stared off into open space, boring a hole through the steel floor. She buried her face deeper into her knees, her eyes lost in old memories.

Yi sensed he was digging up old wounds. But his curiosity won over his sensitivity.  
"...Why?"  
Her answer was short and curt once more.  
"Because it betrayed me when I needed it the most."

Another image, unbidden, flashed across her mind. Of her, flinging her sword out, trying to block the shot. Of her fleeting, ephemeral sense of relief as she felt the weight of the bullet catch onto her blade.  
And of horror, when she felt her blade shatter, and saw the blood of the innocent spill out.  
She drew deeper into her shell, while Yi silently wrapped Traitor back up, and placed it back into her bag. He gently put it back at Riven's feet, while she stared off, lost in her own world.

_This was going to be a long mission, _he realized, closing his eyes. _Too long._  
He never did sense her go to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Hey," One of the pilots of the Kinkou-class shuttle whispered to her copilot, who was dozing off in the seat next over. She poked the man, who half-stumbled off of his chair before shaking himself awake. "Look. There it is."  
"...Woah." The copilot shifted his cap up for a better look.  
The brim of his hat gave way to a spectacular view of _The Ravenous Hydra_. The Supercruiser was but a dark shape against a starry night at the moment, but the shuttle was circling upwards, bringing the Noxian flagship to sharp relief against the gas giant that it had been hiding against. The star of this solar system was dying; the warmth of it's light could hardly be felt from so far. Yet this gas giant brewed some natural chemical luminescence within it's seas; an orange glow bled from the heart of the planet, soon surrounding _The Ravenous Hydra_ in a sickly, demonic halo.

The pilot flicked on her comms.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we have arrived at our destination," The pilot muttered into her mic as she flipped dozens of switches off, powering down anything on the ship that could give off a radiative signature. "We here at Marine Corps Airlines would like to thank you for your continued patronage, and remind you to please keep all carry-on luggage safely stowed in the overhead bins until the plane is safely docked."

She fired the laser-guiding docking ports, which read the signature of the nearest airlock on _The Ravenous Hydra_, while the universal airlock of the Kinkou shifted parts and gears to match the Noxian flagship's patterns.

Inside, the headhunters prepared. Weapons were given a final once-over. Every inch of armor inspected for flaws. Every last ration, ammo clip, and grenade accounted for.

"Once again, thank you for flying with United League Marines, and we would like to welcome you to Noxia Sh*thole, Hell." The pilot locked the umbilical in, and a tunnel-like structure extended from the Kinkou to fit onto _The Ravenous Hydra_'s hull. The doors to the Noxian flagship slid open without a sound.

Captain Rengar waved his team up, and the six members of Team Dark stacked up on the Kinkou's doors to the umbilical. No one knew what was behind those doors. The had to be prepared.

In the back, Riven fumbled with her standard ULNMC-issued pistol.

Still!? Riven muttered from inside her helmet. A helmet with seven glowing lenses swiveled to glance at the Private First Class.

The Captain thumbed his comms with one of his massive paws.  
"Sweep and Clear. Establish a beachhead within the first twenty meters of the entry points, and no further."  
"I won't cry if you happen to hit one of the Royals, either." Rengar muttered, as he flicked off his comms. Riven glanced back at where Team Royal was. Lance Corporal Jayce, along with his three teammates, were relaxing at the back of the lobby. Didn't that fool know that he'd have no pay if Captain Rengar took Du Couteau head?

"Ready?" The pilot called out on the comms, "Opening the umbilical doors in three, two, one... mark!"  
The doors of the Kinkou slid open, and Team Dark filed through the tunnel with barely a whisper.

The Captain was on point. He pushed aside the Noxian-made airlock doors, and burst through, ready to weather the potential counter-assault from Noxian Marines.  
But the Yautja leapt out into nothing. He landed onto the cold, gray steel floor of the supercruiser without so much as a shout from the crew. He looked about, scanning his environments. Not a sound. The ship seemed to be deserted.

The rest of Team Dark spilled into the lobby, followed closely by the Fleet Admiral's marines, and then Team Royal. Nothing. Not a sound.

"Did they all leave in the escape pods?" Riven asked, lowering her gun. There seemed to be nothing but darkness all around them. The lights had gone, leaving only the dim auxiliary lighting to brighten the ship, but even those were half-broke, lighting only about every five feet or so of the corridors in their weak light.

Captain Rengar growled at the thought, stabbing his axe into a innocent nearby wall.

Lieutenant Nidalee crouched, and shook her head.  
"None of the escape pods on our entry side were fired." She announced, sniffed the air, picking out the distinct smells. "I don't smell any Diphydrogen Oxacetelyte. They use that gas to blow off the locks of their pods when they escape."

"How long would it take the gas to spread through the ship," Rengar growled out, "If only the pods on the other side were fired off?"  
"..." Nidalee closed her eyes. The sharp mind that made her the ideal choice for the Headhunter Team's secretary now wrestled with their real world problems. "Six hours. No, two hours. I hear their vents still working."

"We would have caught the pods on our sensors," Yi threw in, "If they had left less than two hours ago."

"Then they're still on this ship." Rengar muttered, flexing his claws.

Off to the side, Lance Corporal Jayce was listening carefully to what Team Dark was saying. His spy radio had nabbed him more than one mark that would have gotten away otherwise- he never went anywhere without it.

Jayce cocked open an eye once heard Rengar's voice growl: "...then they're still on his ship."  
He nodded to one of his partners, who hopped off of the power coil she was sitting on. Without a word, the Royal slipped away from their party. As she did, her skin shimmered, as it took on the colors of the world behind it. A few more seconds later, she was practically invisible in the low light. A few seconds after that, and she was nothing more than a shadow in the night.

"Scout well, Eve." Jayce muttered into his comms,, grinning. "It'd be plain embarrassing if we lost to Captain Furry and his team of Gloomies with our advanced tech now."  
Evelynn's low, cracked voice bled out of his comms.  
"Just don't get distracted by your own reflection again, Corporal."  
"I love you too, Evey."

Jayce closed his eyes, and waited with his teammates as Irelia's marines were setting up defensive cover and sentry guns around the entrance to the umbilical. While Furry and his stumbled in the dark- as soon as Evelynn found the the mark, they would know exactly where to go. She might even pick up the mark herself- Evey was particularly bloodthirsty like that, and with her Indefinite Duration Stealth System, her enemies would never even see her coming.

All they would have to do, Jayce told himself, pulling out a cigarette, is wait. Shame though, he wouldn't get a chance to try out his power suit.

Still, he pitied whomever happened upon Evey.

* * *

Another empty room. All at once, the tension flew out of the team, as their adrenaline spiked once more, fruitlessly.

"If they're all still on board," Crow Talon growled, kicking an innocent convenient garbage can, "Then where the hell is everyone?"  
It was a good question. Team Dark had been wandering about the halls of The Ravenous Hydra for the better part of eight hours now, to be greeted only by dust and silence. With each tense door breach and every suspenseful sweep and clear, despite the lack of enemies, the headhunters were getting mentally exhausted. It was no light thing, to repeatedly pump yourself up for battle, again and again, dozen of times over multiple hours.

Many of them sighing with annoyance or fatigue as they piled out into the corridor to move onto clearing the next room.

Yi glanced back at their subordinates. Nidalee was getting slower and slower in her calculations, forcing longer pauses in between her tracking directions as they turned to her to even snatch a clue as to where they were to go. Talon and Vayne were starting to bicker again, always a sign that they were losing focus, and poor Riven looked like she might fall face forwards.

Yi could see, though. It was more than the combat stress for their Rookie. Something dark and heavy seemed to be weighing in on their Private 1st Class' shoulders, and it was eating away at her focus.

Yi raised a hand, and the team stopped.

"We're taking a fiver," Yi called out to their captain, who was several paces ahead of them already, plodding along, indefatigable. "That OK, Captain?"  
The Captain gave but a glance backwards.  
"Hmph." Rengar shrugged, continuing on. "Do what you like." Rengar's faceplate slid over his lion's maw, shrouding his head in a terrifying skull. "I move onwards."  
Yi's voice rang out, hollow, from his full-facial plate.  
"Try to stay on this tranversal axis in case we lose radio contact, Captain."  
"Hmph."

With that, Captain Rengar left his crew behind.

"Five minutes," Yi called out, "Make them count."

The team didn't waste time. Talon and Vayne found separate corners of their corridor to slump down in, Talon already unscrewing the cap to his flask. Nidalee sat down, yawned, and curled up in a ball in a very cat-like way. As for Riven...

The private swayed on the spot. She fell backwards... her eyes rolling up in her head...

"Hey! Rookie!" Yi took two quick steps forwards, and slammed Riven against the adjacent wall.  
"Ah?!" She woke up just in time to see Yi throw out his fist.  
With one swift fist, he struck her hard off the dome of her head.

"Pull yourself together! You're a Team Dark Headhunter!" He pulled her up by her collar, and even though Riven couldn't see Yi's face from behind his full-face mask, she could feel his anger. "Understand? Don't risk our lives like that dozing off!"

"I-" Riven shook her head. "No, I apologize, Sir. I'll... I'll be fine."  
"You'll have plenty of time to apologize when we're all dead," Yi stated flatly, "Right now, focus on your job."  
"..." Riven hung her head, properly ashamed.  
"Understand?"  
"Yes sir!"

* * *

Riven felt Yi let go of her label, and she slid back onto the ground, defeated. Sh*t, she swore in her mind. Sh*t F*ck Sh*t. She slumped back on the wall, looking up to the wall. She screwed up again. She pulled her hands through her white hair in frustration.

It was those memories again. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of THAT time. The walls were the same hue of Noxian Gray as her last mark's apartment quarters. The silence was the same as that awful silence that followed that fateful gunshot. She shivered just thinking about it.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. When she looked up, she saw it was a hand, with two pills in it's palm.

She looked up, and saw it was Lieutenant Yi.

"They're caffeine pills. Come on, Rookie. Take'em."

Riven cupped her hands, and let Yi tip the drugs into her grasp. Slowly, she popped one in her mouth. The bitter taste made her wince, but bit by bit, as she worked around the taste, she felt herself wake up.

"Better now, Rookie?"  
She nodded.  
"Good. Then let's go. We've got a job to finish."

* * *

The headhunter Evelynn slipped through yet another empty room. She was starting to get irritated now. Were Du Couteau and his lackeys really still on this ship? She had been moving through the rooms first carefully, then a little more quickly, and then faster and faster as her patience wore thin until she was practically jogging through the rooms. This supercruiser was enormous, and she was only one person.

And those bastards Jayce and Co. back at home base were probably drinking it up and playing cards, realized Eve irritably. At least the pay was good.

She slipped into a particularly large set of doors. Once she did, she stopped short.  
She found the engine room. Six massive cold fusion reactors were still running on autopilot, bathing the area in waves of alpha particles so thick that Evelynn could feel her stealth suit crackle and pop as it stupidly tried to mirror the alpha particles over her body, attempting to absorb the massive radiation from one end, and emit it from the other.

Piece of junk. Jayce never did skimp on his own equipment, but everyone else's was different.

She ordered the suit to set a limiter, and she could see the shape of her form, shimmering like she was invisible in a rainshower. Annoying, but it would have to do.

Then a deep, strong voice cut across her dismay.  
"What's that? Disturbance in the Sector Eight?"  
Eve immediately made for the nearest shadow of the reactors. The darkness managed to wrap her just as a door on the other side of the reactor room slid open.

Her breath drew short when she saw who it was.

Marcus Du Couteau, Lord of Admirals of the Royal Noxia Fleet, stepped out. Despite the heavy radiation, he strode through the massive energies like it wasn't there. His guard on the other hand, was shrouded in crimson and black armor, and his face hidden inside a dark helm. The man was a Crimson Elite. He trotted dutifully after his Admiral as he walked out, talking to him.

"Yes my Lord," The Crimson Elite stated, "There was an unathorized access to gate terminals R-454, R-678, T-892, and G-551."  
Evelynn swallowed nervously. Those were the exact names of the doors that she took in this sector of the ship.  
"Could it be just a malfunction," Du Couteau asked. "Systems error?"  
"No my Lord. The accessed gates form a trail leading directly to here. Possiblity of a malfunction occuring in all four gates in that particular sequence is small"

"Then sweep this area, and keep track of further gate accesses. Whoever it is, he can't have gone far."

That was her cue to leave, Eve realized. First she would get the hell out of this murderhole, and then she would radio it in to Jayce.

As she stood, her suit crackled softly.

"Oh, and by the way," Du Couteau turned slowly to face the Evelynn. "You know how much I hate vermin on my ship."

Before Eve could get up and run, a glove clasped over her mouth, another grasped the hand that could thumb her comms and broke it, and Du Couteau's second Crimson Elite, who had just stepped out of his own, more advanced stealth suit, dragged Evelynn back into the darkness. She disappeared without so much as a whisper.

* * *

Something was here.

Rengar turned to face murderous prescene he felt from the corner of the room. He was in a mess hall of some sort. Food still sat in their tins, cold and stale from hours of abandonment. The lights were out here. To a layman, it would have seemed as empty as every other part of the ship.

But that aura. That killing intent that was so raw and so pure.

Rengar slowly placed a hand on his axe. Whoever it was, he was an amateur, if he couldn't mask his killing intent. But hidden in that killing intent was limitless potential.

It wasn't Du Couteau, Rengar considered, for as far as the Yautja knew of the man, Du Couteau was too good let his killing intent spill out so easily. Admiral Lito? No, the same issue, as with Yi or anyone else on the short list of people who could radiate such power.

An unknown, then. Rengar licked his lips. He would enjoy this.

Making as if he didn't notice, Rengar walked slowly, off on a tangent of the source of the murderous aura. Whoever it was, he was powerful, but simple. This would undoubtedly draw him out. He fingered the grip of his axe. And when he did, Rengar would be ready.

He drew closer. Twenty feet. The pads of his claw-like feet clacked softly on the hard steel floor. Fifeteen feet. Only a few more tables and benches left in between him and the killer.

Ten.

Rengar dared another step out of himself.

Five.

He stopped. He could barely make out some kind of form, squatting in the trench in between benches. It didn't look human, or Yautja. It...was something else. Rengar licked his lips. So close. Would he be able to close the gap in time?  
It would be exciting to find out. He grinned.

In an instant, Rengar lunged, the tip of his axe whipping out to claw at the base of the thing's neck.

"RUUUUUUAAAAAAGH!"

His axe plunged without resistance into the thing, and sent it flying. It felt far lighter than Rengar imagined. As it flew against the wall, Rengar activated his suit's flashlights. He shifted his bulky chest to face the thing he had just killed.

An exoskeleton. It was an insect shell of some sort, the size of a grown man, hollow, and translucent in places. With a blow, Rengar had shattered the chitin. He had mistaken it for the killer. But then, if the killing source wasn't coming from the exoskeleton, then.

Rengar looked up, his flashlights lighting up the leaping form of Speciman Six as it was descending.

"DeVoUrrrRrrR..!" It screamed in it's terrible scream.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Crap. He didn't have... anything.  
Lance Corporal William Jayce Westmoreland glanced up from his Two of Hearts and Seven of Clubs to sneak a glance at the masked man in front of him, Specialist Kegan Rodhe, who was the only one left in the pot. The fellow Headhunter betrayed no emotion; nothing showed through the man's full-optical mask. Only a self-inflicted brand of a black skull that covered the face of Kegan's mask.

Jayce and the rest of his Team Royal were seated around an ammo crate; they had been playing poker for the better part of three hours. Further around them, the Lito's ULNN marines milled about the bulkhead that they had set up around the umbilical tube; their lifeline back to the Kinkou ship that they had used to get onto The Ravenous Hydra in the first place.

Jayce licked his lips, and glanced at his cards again. There was almost two month's worth of pay in the pot right now, but Jayce had never seen Kegan read a man wrong. Could he really bluff his way past their team pyromaniac? He had never managed to do it before.  
Well... there was a first time for everything.  
"Call," Jayce announced, dropping a few more plastic credits into the pot; the chips clinked softly onto the massive pool of money set on the top of an ammo crate that Team Royal had converted into their dealing table.

Kegan said nothing; he only stared off into space. Did he finally stump their resident poker face? Jayce felt a smile creep involuntarily to his face. Damn his natural smile; this is why he would never win their weekly poker tournaments.  
Still Kegan stayed silent.  
Jayce glanced up from his cards, slowly reaching out to the pot.  
"So..." Jayce tossed out carefully, edging the pot of credits towards himself. "You fold?"  
"..." Brand wasn't looking at his cards. Jayce edged the pile of plastic a bit closer to himself.  
"Eve quiet," Kegan's gravelly, muffled voice edged out. "Her report late."  
Jayce took a quick glance around at his other teammates, to make sure this wasn't some trick to snatch his pot, before looking back down at his own watch.  
1672 hours, his Piltover Custom said. He frowned. Their pyromaniac was right. Evey was supposed to check in over half and hour ago. And it definitely wasn't like Evey to pass up a chance to complain to Jayce about how hard she was always working. Something was up. Jayce thumbed his comms, connecting directly to Evelynn's radio.  
A flip of a switch, and he had a line to her comms.  
"Heya honey..." Jayce chewed his bottom lip, talking to his mic. "I was getting lonely... you wanna... let us know what's up out there? Over."  
He released his comms, but only silence answered him. He thought he heard the slightest trickle of static, but as soon as it came, it was gone. The Team Royal leader felt a pit of concern grow in his stomach.  
"Evey... don't play hard to get now... Over."  
Still silence.  
"We should go," Kegan muttered.  
"...Yeah," Jayce stood up, and the rest of Team Royal with him, the pile of credits forgotten on the ammo crate. He reached out, and grasped his Mercury Hammer. The transforming weapon reacted to his touch, and folded its into a comfortable carrying position as Lance Corporal Jayce slung his signature weapon over his back.  
"Ladies, Gentlemen," Jayce called out, leading the way into the darkness of the corridors of the Noxian supercruiser. As he did, his helmet automatically folded itself around his skull, entombing the Headhunter leader in full metal plate.  
His power armor started its pre-processes warm-ups, and his Mercury Hammer charged, glowing bright at its heart.  
His voice clackled up from his suit's speakers, warping his voice, making it sounder deeper and more serious. There was no trace of his jovial smugness left. Only business. Headhunter business.  
"Let's get to it."

-  
They had been clashing for almost ten minutes now, but those ten minutes felt like a lifetime for the Headhunter Leader.  
Creature and Headhunter clashed again, and the force of their blows knocked the dueling combatants from each other for an instant. And in that instant, the Creature made its move.  
Spines, sharp as any armor-piercing bullet, shot through the darkness of the mess hall. They flew at Rengar with deadly precision, only the Yautja Captain's superior night vision and his quick reflexes let him deflect the spines with a sweep of his axe. Hardened Ceramic clashed with impossibly sharp bone, causing blue sparks to explode from the points of contact. Rengar could feel pieces of his Axe fly off it's blade, and he could see the deep grooves that the Creature's spines left in his weapon.  
Rengar leaped backwards, and with a single paw, slammed a mess hall table, so long that could seat two dozen Noxian servicemen, so hard that the metal legs bent, and the mess hall table formed a temporary partition in between him and that... Creature. The Headhunter crouched, hiding himself from that Thing.  
The Headhunter Captain could hear the Creature's inhuman growls, and feel more of its spines pierce the mess hall table randomly along its length. Only the Creature's line of sight saved him from becoming a furry pincushion. Rengar glanced down at his axes, and growled in annoyance as soon he saw that his weapons were at their limits; they probably couldn't handle anymore than three more blows from those spines each.  
An old, long-lost emotion struck his heart. Fear of Death. The feeling had been absent from his life for so long that its return felt alien to him. So this is what his prey felt like, Rengar realized.  
He smiled. He had never felt more alive in his life.  
He gripped his axes once more, glancing over them one more time, as more and more spines punched clean through the half-inch metal plate that was the mess hall table that the Yautja was hiding behind. Three more hits, huh? A fang-filled grin spread over the Yautja's lion maw.  
He tensed up, just like a Lion readying itself for the kill.  
The very instant the spines from the Creature let up, Rengar made his own move.

A single move, a single leap and Rengar vaulted over the mess hall table. While in flight, he sighted his target. That insect-like Creature was lurking but ten meters from him. The moment the Yautja's feet touched solid floor, another flurry of spines shot out from the Creature. Rengar only choose to block the one spine aimed at his heart, the rest easily tore through his armor, fur, and body, but they were only flesh wounds.  
Rengar roared, and leapt forwards, blocking two more spines in flight with his left axe. At the third block, he felt his axe shatter, and he was left with only one. But that was all he needed to get into melee range with the beast.  
The Headhunter was about to drive his right-hand axe deep into the Creature's skull, but a flicker of movement to Rengar's right caught his attention, and the Yautja abandoned his killing blow to raise his weapon to block the blow. He had just enough time to realize what that flicker was, before ducking down to avoid the attack, but not before he had time to yank his weapon out of the way. As the flicker passed through, the most of his axe fell off it's handle, sliced clean at it's hilt. The worn blade clattered to ground, the Creature's attack slowed enough for Rengar to confirm the wisdom of his dodge, and the beast-warrior growled at his predicament- for an impossibly sharp scythe had shot out from the creature's arm, and it cut through Rengar's weapons like they were made of clay.  
And now, Rengar was defenseless.  
The Creature lunged out with his left claw, and this time Rengar did not have the luxury to dodge. Rengar screamed, Speciman Six lodged it's scythe deep into Captain Rengar Uhor's eye and the Yautja roared in pain as everything in the entire world turned red.  
Through the burning sensation in his head, Rengar somehow found the strength to reach out and grab the Creature by it's chitinous, oily skull. With desperate strength, the Headhunter Captain threw the creature over his shoulder like a ragdoll, and slammed it into the nearest metal object, a table, while the thing screeched and flailed.  
As he buried the Creature's skull in an aluminum table, it's scythe that was lodged in the Captain's eye tore out of his head, still carrying on it in flecks, what remained of the the Yautja's eye. The pain of that finally robbed the Yautja of his senses, and Rengar felt the world turn dull and black. His paw, still wrapped tightly around Speciman Six's head, gradually loosened it's grip, as the Yautja Captain fell backwards, unconcious from the pain. Yet Six did not move despite being freed, for the single blow to its head had rattled whatever resembled a brain in its body, and the Creature, too, was absent from the world.  
All was silent. For now.

* * *

A rumbling could be heard from down the hall, down to where the remainder of Team Dark was resting. Heads snapped towards the source of the sound. The rumbling went on for a few more seconds, before fading away into the night. An even uneasier silence spread around the team of headhunters, as the roar of whatever it was lingered in their ears.  
Riven was the first to break the silence.  
"We all heard that, right?"  
"Lieutenant," Yi whispered to Nidalee, who was already on her feet, a pistol in her hands. The liuetenant was staring off intently in the direction of the sound, trying to apply her ultra-sensitive ears to the task. "What the hell was that?"  
The Yautja chewed her lip.  
"I... don't know." She closed her eyes in concentration. "It's not mechanical, at least I don't think. There's no ringing of metallic vibrations. Maybe it was some explosive ordinance, but not any kind I've heard before; it's too long. Maybe it's a slow burner, like Thermite."  
"It's not a bomb," Talon muttered, "or we'd already be dead. One leak, and Father Space is going to ram his giant, cold, vacuum cock straight up our-"  
"If it's not a bomb," Yi said, cutting Talon off from his vivd description "then what is it?"  
"Why don't we find out?" Vayne offered. "Maybe it's related to Du Couteau. Maybe the Noxian idiot blew himself the eff up."  
"Hah!" Talon scoffed, to Vayne's predictable annoyance, "Du Couteau's no idiot. I'd say it was our glorious Lance Corporal Jayce being an idiot with his toys again if he's not sitting on his ass, losing all of his chips on Poker."  
"Regardless," Yi cut in, nipping potential conflict in the bud, "we should go check it out" Yi turned to Lieutenant Loulee. "Nid, lead the way."  
The Yautja slid up to the metal door. A few soft taps on the keypad, and she unlocked the door.  
"Aye aye, Commander." Nidalee eased open the door to the hallway, and silently slunk into the dark corridor ahead, followed closely by Crow Talon; screwing the cap back on his flask, and Luce Vayne, who changed her cartridges. Yi was about to follow, when he noticed Private Riven, who was still sitting in the corner by herself, staring at a spot at the floor.  
"Private? What's the hold-up?"  
"..." Riven looked up, her brow still furrowed in concentration. "I was just thinking... that noise..."  
"Hm? What about it?"  
"... It sounded a lot like the Captain."  
Yi felt a pit grow in his stomach.  
"Let's hurry."

* * *

Quietly, calmly, a Crimson Elite shimmered into existence in the Mess Hall. His cruel helm betrayed no emotion as the Noxian special forces carefully approached the two unconscious combatants. His footfalls made only the slightest click on the fiber steel floor as he weaved his way through the debris of the battle. Arriving upon the still form of Specimen Six, he keyed his comms.  
From the other end, a clear, cultured voice answered.  
"Yes?"  
"My Lord." The Crimson Elite greeted, "I have a visual on the package."  
"Dead?" Queried the Lord of Admirals Du Couteau from the other end of the comms, "Alive?"  
"Both alive, my Lord." The Crimson Elite drew a pistol from one of his many holsters. He calmly leveled it straight at the Captain Rengar's head. "Is the Yautja expendable, my Lord?" The Crimson Elite pulled back the hammer in anticipation.  
"...Ha. Idiot." Du Couteau rebuked, "Lower your weapon before you kill us all, and check the beast's left-hand vambrace, and what do you see?"  
Confused, the Crimson Elite lowered his pistol, and reached out to grab Captain Rengar's left armguard. It seemed bulkier and and heavier than it should be. The Noxian turned the heavy arm over in his hand, searching for a clue as to what his Lord was talking about.  
"The ultimate disgrace for the Yautja is to die with their bodies unburned, for those mystics believe that consuming ones flesh grants you their power."  
A small blinking red light could seen on the bottom of the armsguard. From inside his helm, the Crimson Elite frowned. Then the realization started to creep on him...  
"So naturally, when they die, they blow themselves up, along with anything else within a mile radius."  
The Crimson Elite scrambled up, dropping the armsguard like it was venomous, cursing the entire way.  
"Shi t! Crazy motherfu-"  
"Easy now. Just retrieve our test speciman and extract calmly. We still have plenty more stuff to do, and this changes nothing in our plans."  
It took a few seconds, and more than a few deep breathes, but the Crimson Elite gathered himself. He holstered his gun, and turned to restrain the unconscious Specimen Six, careful to avoid slicing himself open on the razor sharp scythes of his, before lifting the alien creature up like a package, and walking back.  
The Crimson Elite activated his stealth systems, and soon, only a floating, unconscious Specimen Six could be seen, slowly bobbing his way into the darkness, and finally, out of sight.

* * *

"...Oh my God..." Jayce muttered through his suit's comms, as he looked upwards to the heavens. He pressed his suit's helm release, and his helmet automatically peeled away, letting him see the spectacle with his naked eyes.

The members of team Royal were clustered about the entrance to the ship's infirmary. No small clinic, the infirmary like everything in Noxus, was big. It was a state of the art, massive, multi-story complex that ate up a good three percent of the ship's total mass. The infirmary opened up to a courtyard of sorts at the center, which opened up every story of the infirmary above it, creating an atrium of some sorts, and at the center of that atrium, the two-story tall statue of a cruel doctor, standing tall and proud with limbs missing, and holding a saw in one hand and a cruel hook for a hand in the other.

Someone had reactivated the lights of the atrium, so that soft while light bled down from the atrium's ceiling.

Which made Evelynn's body, limp, bloody, and stuck through the doctor's hook, impossible to miss. Five feet, below her feet, lay her positioning transmitter, which was also reactivated and left by her body to ensure she would be found.

"...damn..." Jayce hung his head, while the rest of the headhunters milled about, glancing at each other, unnerved. No one had ever died on one of their missions yet. This was their first loss, and their first real brush with death. It was their first realization that the best technology that money could buy was not a complete replacement to experience and training. While his companions daudled about, Brand set himself to standing on the statue's pedestal, trying to pull Evelynn's body down.

After some effort, Brand managed to lay Eve's body down on the steel floor. Jayce knelt beside Evelynn's corpse, and put a cold metal palm up against her chin.

"Evey would have hated this," Jayce muttered softly, smiling a bit.

"...Boss." Brand said softly, glancing down at the bloody hole where Evelynn's chest used to be. Jayce glanced up, looking almost startled. Brand stepped down from the statue's pedestal to hand Jayce a bloody sheet. "This was in Eve."

Jayce took the sheet lightly, and read it over.

He fell silent. His employees watched him intently, looking for his reaction.

"...well?" Team Royal's long range specialist, Sivir, broke the silence first. Her arms were crossed in impatience, but her concern was plain on her face. She like everyone else was shaken by Evelynn's death.

"'Meet me at the engine room if you want revenge', it says." Jayce crumbled the piece of paper in his armored fist. His eyes narrowed. "signed, Lord of Admirals, Marcus Arelius Du Couteau."

Jayce slammed his fist into the steel floor, sinking his armored gauntlet in a half-inch. As he pulled his knuckles out the metal popped and creaked.

"We're going."

"It's a trap," Kegan noted, as Jayce passed him to stand up.

"I don't care! We're going." Jayce snapped, his helmet folding itself around his head once more. As he did, the authority in his voice grew once more. Jayce turned to stare at Brand, reflective visor to reflective visor. "This is for Evey. We go." Jayce then turned to walk out of the Infirmary, bidding his team to follow him. Without another word, they did. Team Royal set off for the engine room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

It was totally quiet.

Riven poked her head through the door, glancing around at the inside. She was standing outside of the dozens of mess halls, her feet planted yet another one of the thousands of gray, featureless hallways that they had been crawling through for hours now.

_Why can't people ever try to make warships look nice from the inside,_ Riven thought, as she scanned the darkness that filled the mess hall, before she slipped in, drawing her pistol up. Bolt it together with steel and don't bother to even put a fresh coat of paint, and you're just begging for something creepy like this to happen.  
And it was creepy. This whole damn place. Riven had seen her share of Noxian warship insides back when she was serving the Empire, but never like this, dimly lit and shrouded in mystery and something that felt uncomfortably like… evil.  
She felt like someone was watching her. She felt like the darkness outside was drawing out the darkness inside. She felt fear.  
Riven sidled up to the next door, and laid her hand on the door's push handle. Her fingers brushed the cool metal, and memories swept up on her once more.  
Just like before.

She closed her eyes. And remembered.

* * *

**Lord of Generals Darkwill's Quarters, Kalamandra Station, Oot Nebula, How many years ago, five, ten years? It's been too long.**

The room was brightly lit back then, and unlike her present surroundings, pleasant and comfortable. The housings of high-ranking Noxian commanders were usually grand and extravagant; the symptoms of hollow men, puffed up with rankings and honors, and so self-absorbed that before they realized it, they were swallowed up, victims of their own glories.  
This man, this General Darkwill, was different. The walls were relatively bare, painted over in a pleasant cream color, although a fresh coat of blood intermittently splattered their once immaculate finish. The furniture was minimalist, but soft and clean, and what few desks he had was covered in either work papers or crayon scribblings. The only trace of extravagance was an opened bottle of aged brandy on the desk nearest Darkwill's fold-down bedding. The bottle was half-way done, with the gift ribbon still tied to its neck. The Lord of Generals liked his alcohol.

She remembered.

She stood with five of her other comrades, around the defeated General Darkwill, who was on his knees in submission. He had put up a fierce fight, him and his own personal guard. But now his bodyguards were lying dead, their blood splattering the walls that led down to the General's bathroom. By Darkwill's side, lay a gorgeous woman, perhaps a prostitute or a girlfriend; the General they knew was not married. Her fiery red hair was splayed out from behind her in death, clashing horribly with the crimson in her blood, that pooled beneath her body. Their deaths were purposefully made more gruesome than Riven and her team was accustomed to. This was no ordinary assassination.  
Specialist Katarina Du Couteau leveled her ULNN-issued rifle at the General's head. General Darkwill, dressed in nothing more than his sleeveless shirt and boxers, looked up with quiet dignity at the gun barrel aimed at his face. His clear blue eyes stared fearlessly up at the instrument that was to kill him.  
If Riven had allowed herself to be a woman back then, she might have noted the General's strong features: his clear stare, his set jaw, or his upright posture despite his broken leg. But she was sent to kill him, and that left no room for her or her emotions in the equation.

She was a sword in the night, a blade for Noxia, she told herself back then, and nothing else.

She slowly brought her blade to Darkwill's exposed throat, to keep him from trying anything stupid. Her blade was a gorgeous thing, a beautiful two-handed sword made of runic black stone; sharper than any razor, and blacker than hell itself. Inscribed on it was her codename she took, shining in bright gold letters along the body of the blade.

Then the Lord of Generals spoke.

"A last request," Darkwill seemed to whisper, yet Riven could hear him clearly. "don't hurt my daughter. Don't hurt Karen."

Riven glanced up at her comrades. Katarina returned her glance, and the Specialist turned back to the man kneeling before her. The assassin nodded. As soon as Katarina nodded, the Lord of Generals sighed in relief. His solace was apparent all over his body. His muscular chest relaxed, and he seemed to resign himself to his fate.

"Thank yo-"  
Before he could finish his thanks, Katarina shot him three times through his chest. Her stolen gun gave only the slightest kick, and the General wordlessly fell to the floor, like he had been knocked unconscious. They all knew he wasn't.

Katarina knelt a bit to prod the fallen General. He didn't move. Satisfied, the assassin stood up.  
"Finally." she muttered. The rest of her team nodded silently. The had just been through a fierce fight.  
"That Darkwill..." Riven muttered into her mic, sighing. "Toughest customer yet, ye?" her teammates relayed the sentiment. Many of them were still cradling the wounds that the Lord of Generals had made on them, and with only a six-inch letter opener.

Riven took off her helmet, letting her sweat-soaked hair breathe a little. When she got back to her quarters, she would sleep for a week.

"Time to extract," Riven called out, "ye?"

They were silent. Confused, Riven turned back. Four of her teammates were filing into the one room they hadn't been into yet. Darkwill's daughter's room. She couldn't see Kat, but somehow, Riven knew where she was.

"Kat," Riven called into her mic, "what are you doing?"

"Finishing this job." Katarina called back, from inside the room.  
"What?!"

Riven rushed to Karen Darkwill's room. The door was ajar, and Katarina was standing a few feet inside, checking the pullback on her slide, surrounded by their teammates. The white casing of the ULNN rifle stood out in the darkness of the child's room. A few feet further in the darkness, Riven could see a small child's bed, with a small form asleep under pink covers. Karen Darkwill's chest moved slightly up and down as she dreamed sweet dreams.

"Kat..." Riven pushed through the door and past her teammates, a pit in her stomach. "What in hell are you doing?"  
"Making sure the kid stays sleeping. Good night, sweety." Katarina aimed the gun at the little girl, but she yelled out as she was knocked aside. Her ULNN rifle fell clattering to the ground, while the assassin stumbled forwards. Specialist Katarina wheeled on her.

"The hell!?"  
"I should be saying that!" Riven drew up, face to face with Katarina. "We gave Darkwill our word!"  
"We have a job to finish!" Katarina snarled, her normally pretty features twisting into something harder. "No survivors is what my father said! What OUR Admiral Du Couteau said!"  
"She's just a kid!" Riven shot back, her fists balling up in anger.  
"So was I! Childhood sucks!" Katarina tilted her head so Riven could see he scar over her eye more clearly; her voice dropped to only a whisper. Riven had seen this before. Kat's 'souvenir' from her childhood. "My father did this to me when I was only twelve. I won't fail him again."  
"She's asleep!" Riven bit her lip, pleading frantically, "She hasn't seen anything!"

"I'll make sure of that," Katarina muttered, picking up her ULNN rifle again. She lowered her head, putting her eye through the rifle's scope. "Now get out of the way so we can make a good little international incident just like my Lord of Admirals father wants."

"You won't." Riven stated flatly. She took a single step past Kat, putting herself between Karen Darkwill and her assassin.

Katarina lifted her head to stare at Riven with wide eyes, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Then, a smile cracked across the assassin's scarred face. Her chuckle, low and humorless, filled the child's room as she beheld her suicidal comrade.

"You always were a pain in our ass, Rivi. Now, of all times, you decide to grow a conscience? Why couldn't you just wait a few years for the PTSD to kick in like everyone else will, and kill yourself then?"

Katarina leveled her rifle at Riven again.

"And now," Katarina's voice dropped, her tone almost apologetic, "you're gonna force me to kill a friend." Riven stared back at Katarina, her face impassive. But her hand was creeping slowly downwards to where her runic black sword was holstered. Katarina spotted Riven's movement, and seemed to laugh at the notion.

"Oh, Rivi. You'll always be trouble." Katarina lowered her rifle, sighing. Across from the Du Couteau, Riven still had her hand drifting near her sword. Riven wasn't going to let her guard down. She knew Kat too well for that.

"Which means we'll have to finish our job before we deal with you." Katarina raised her hand, signaling, and the left-most of their comrades raised his rifle at Karen Darkwill, and fired.

"No!" Riven yelled. She lunged to the side, drawing her sword in one fluid motion.

_Please reach! _She pleaded desperately in her mind, as she flung her sword out to the side, trying to block the shot. For a single, glorious moment, she felt the weight of the bullet on the body of her blade, and she had an instant of relief. Then, impossibly, she saw her blade shatter. Runic black stone, one of the heaviest, hardest elements in the world. Shattered by a mere bullet when she needed it the most. The broken pieces of her blade fell clattering to the floor. The man who fired the shot, Falcon, lifted his ULNN rifle back up, his job done. The shattered pieces of Riven's blade lay scattered about the floor; dark black pieces shining bright even in the low light.

Why...? Riven thought, horrified, as she turned her gaze to face the sleeping Karen Darkwill. At a glance, she looked fine. But there was a single point in the bedding that had been spun and sunk in deeply, and Riven could see blood starting to seep through the pink fabric.  
She failed.  
She felt her hand drop, the weight of her sword feeling alien in her hands; too light from the lost mass of blade. The rest of her body felt numb all over as the realization crept onto her.

Katarina turned to Riven, and for a moment, the assassin's eyes softened. She knelt down beside the motionless Riven; her friend still in shock.  
"I'm sorry, Rivi." Katarina lowered her rifle, while drawing one of her two daggers from her leg sheath. "I should have known you were the most sensitive of our team. I shouldn't have taken you on this mission. That was my fault, and I apologize for that."  
Katarina raised her dagger to Riven's throat, who was still staring out into space.

"But you're a liability now. Goodbye, Rivi." Katarina leaned in for a soft kiss on Riven's cheek, and then she would draw her dagger over Riven's throat. But before she could, Riven turned to face her. Katarina caught a full view of the blankness in Riven's eyes. And the fire deep within.  
Then Riven leaned back, and rammed her forehead into the bridge of Katarina's nose.

The assassin stumbled back, clutching at her bleeding nose, swearing. Blood seeped out from between her slender fingers. Katarina fell against the back wall, and stared back at Riven, who was slowly rising, broken sword in grip.

"Kill her!" Katarina yelled into her hand, and her teammates raised her ULNN rifles at Riven, but they were too late. She was already in motion.  
Riven shifted to put only a single man in front of her, and violently swung her broken sword at the man's helmet. The jagged runic black stone shattered the metal of his protective vision like an eggshell, and Riven could feel her sword dig into Falcon's skull through his polyester visor.

Before Falcon could fall to the floor, Riven grabbed his corpse by the label, and rammed him against the woman directly behind him. Loon stumbled back into Avis who fired a wild shot into the ceiling. Johka was faster on his feet, and he managed to avoid Avis to draw a bead on Riven. He got off two shots on Riven before she was on him. His bullets slammed into her suit and broke bone, but their impacts were not fatal. She rammed the broken end of her sword into the part of his suit that covered his neck, and the thin plating yielded easily. Johka choked, clutched at the sword in his neck, and died. More blood seeped out from the end of her sword. Loon and Avis were just beginning to recover, so Riven didn't give them that chance. She swung her sword as violently as she could, carving into both of their stomachs in a single cleave. If she had been holding her complete sword, that would have cut them both in half.

Riven was just about to catch a breath, before Katarina lunged at her from behind Loon and Avis's falling bodies.

"RIVI!" She screamed, a dagger in each hand. She pushed Riven back with her furious slashes, clashing against the runic black stone of her blade with every strike; blue sparks shot out every time their weapons made contact. Time and time Katarina lunged at her, going for the kill, and time and time against Riven deflected her by a hair's breadth. They seemed to be evenly matched. But they both knew that Riven was the close-combat specialist of their team. Katarina was tiring faster than Riven was. She was starting to win.

Riven checked a looping cut from Katarina, before slamming into her hard with her free hand. The assassin fell back, growling. Riven took the chance to leap at Katarina. In a flash of desperation, Katarina had flung her daggers at Riven, one at her heart and one at her eye.  
If Riven's sword had been whole, she might not have been fast enough to block the lightning-fast throws, but her sword was lighter and Riven just barely managed to deflect the daggers. They spun off into the darkness of the room, clattering somewhere off in the distance, or perhaps lodging themselves into the walls. It didn't matter. Katarina was weaponless.

Riven held her blade out, leveling her jagged point over her friend's heart.

Katarina stared furiously into Riven's eyes, her chest heaving up and down in anger and exertion. Riven stared back, her eyes blank, sadness creeping slowing into her soft, grey eyes. Katarina glanced over at Avis's discarded ULNN rifle, and back at Riven. Riven didn't miss the glance either.

She could see it in Kat's eyes. Riven shook her head the slightest bit.

_Kat. Please don't._

A grin almost formed on Katarina's face, the slightest tribute to their long-standing friendship. For a moment, Riven thought she would yield. Then, the assassin's face darkened, fury bleeding onto her scarred face.  
"DO IT, RIVI!"  
"KAT!"  
Katarina lunged for the rifle, but Riven stopped her.

She stabbed with her blade, and rammed Katarina up against the wall, until Riven could feel the stiff resistance of the plaster wall at the tip of her blade. As Katarina heaved forwards, driving the blade deeper into her stomach, Riven could smell the soft scent of Sandalwood from Katarina's hair. That's right. Kat had wanted her to try her perfume after this mission.

_"Might finally get you a man," Katarina had joked in the locker room. "Wait too long, and you'll be an old maid, Rivi." She laughed at Riven's strucken face, just to show she was kidding._

Riven seemed to come back into the world. She looked up, at Katarina, with the slightest bit of surprise dawning on her face.  
"...Kat?"  
Riven looked down at her blade, which was buried almost hilt-deep into her friend, and back up at her friend's dying face.  
If she had looked up expecting to see some sort of smile or comforting gaze, she was mistaken. Katarina's face was contorted in pain and anger. Her teeth were bared in frustration.

"Riven..." Katarina muttered, in her dying breath. "damn you... you idiot."

Riven drew back, drawing the blade out of Katarina, and the assassin fell forwards, dead. Everything was silent. Riven looked slowly around at the spectacle. Karen Darkwill was still dead in her bed. Falcon's helmet was shattered at it's visor, blood seeping through the cracked polyester glass of his helm. Johka was slumped against the wall behind him, blood flowing like a river from his throat. Loon and Avis were silently lying on the floor, clutching at the deep cuts in their stomaches. And Kat...

"No..." Riven started backing away from the horror scene.

"Oh God, what..." Riven didn't know whether she was thinking it or saying it out loud any longer. In a sense, it didn't matter. If a tree falls on a massacre, does it make a sound?  
Riven fell to her knees, leaned upwards to the heavens, and screamed.

* * *

**HLS The Ravenous Hydra, Horsehead Nebula, 0360 hours**

Riven opened her eyes. How long had she been dreaming? She glanced back, but it seemed none of her teammates had noticed her lapse. It couldn't have been that long. Wordlessly, she opened the door, and glanced around. Only silence answered her. Tch. Empty. Silently, she closed the door again. And she tried not to imagine Kat's eyes staring back at her from behind the door crack when she did.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

He woke.

But was he dead or alive?

Captain Rengar Uhor opened his only remaining eye to see only blackness. First, slowly and painfully, he clenched and unclenched his paw. A hot, burning sensation shot through his joints as he worked his fingers and claws. The pain felt real enough. So he was still alive. He slowly pushed himself up, until he worked himself into a crouching position on three limbs. It felt like someone was driving a red-hot nail through his face. He experimentally waved his paw in front of his destroyed eye, and saw nothing. This lack of depth perception was going to take a bit getting used to.

Despite his injuries, the Yautja's mind was already racing.

The Creature. Where was it? He scanned the area with his eyes and ears. Yet there was only silence and blackness to greet him. It was gone. He knew he didn't manage to kill it. That meant it was still alive, out there somewhere. But he had injured it somehow. That would buy him some time. Then what was next? Inventory. What did he still have on him? He gave his ruined axes barely a glance before mentally striking them off the list. They were but bits of shards and clay now. He reached down, and fingered a smooth metal handle strapped to the outside of his thigh.

He grasped it, pulled it out in front of him... and squeezed.

His telescoping Kombi spear rapidly extended itself it it's full length, nearly as long as Rengar was tall. The double-sided spear shone brightly even in the low light, it's cruel point glittering. After turning it over to inspect for damage, Rengar closed the spear again with another squeeze, satisfied that it was working properly. The spear shrank back to it's original size and he snapped it back onto his leg without issue. He had few other treasures. A razor-wire net. A few grenades. His armguard-mounted claws. And...

Strapped to Rengar's other leg... the Yautja reached down, reverently, to his ancestral dagger that he always kept with him. The beautiful Yautjian tool was usually reserved for ceremonial trophy kills and for particularly significant hunts. It was edged from a single sharp chunk of Acalciamite, an intensely strong mineral that was indestructible. His ancestors spent generations slowly honing that chunk of Acalciamite into a blade; sharpened and formed from the bones of their enemies.

Rengar tilted the dagger in his hands to make sure that he still remembered its weight. It was known among his people that such wondrous blades only sharpened themselves on the blood and bones of an enemy greater than they; and would dull and chip if it bit into a lesser foe. To cut his ceremonial dagger on anything, he would have to take a centuries' worth of ancestral killings into account to ensure he did not dull their family dagger.

_Well?_ Rengar asked himself in his mind,_ Is this Creature worthy of your family's edge?_

He only had to think back once to the Creature's wicked, scything claws, to it's torrent of spines and stings it shorn from it's back, and to it's inhuman, calculating gaze, to find his answer.  
A fanged smile spread across his face, as Rengar rose to his full, terrifying height, his wounds and injures forgotten.  
He pulled his ceremonial dagger, the Uhor Fang, up to his paw, and laid it's edge in his palm, and closed his paw around the cool metal. With a single, sharp motion, he drew it out, and red blood flowed bright from between his claws, rolling down to well in his palm.

He dipped a claw into the pooling blood, and drew on himself the mark of his clan in blood, and then he said his vows.

He, Rengar, son of Kargar, would find this beast. He, Rengar, son of the Uhor clan, would hunt it down and kill it. He, Rengar, son of the Huntress Goddess of the Jungle, would seize this beast's skull in the cold, metal forest that was his hunting grounds and honor his family, his clan, and his race.  
This he swore to his ancestral spirits.

Finished, Rengar strode forwards, leaving his broken axes abandoned on the floor. Captain Rengar smiled, full and truly, for he never felt more alive in his life. His grin revealed a rack of shining white fangs. The hunt was on.

And nothing would stand in his way to his prize.

* * *

Far away, in another part of the ship, Specimen Six woke as well. Unlike the Yautja captain, Specimen Six had no sacred vows or ancient rituals to undertake. Confused, it woke upon sprawled in a cold storage room, alone and hungry. It sighted in front of him, a hand and a heart. Laid out neatly in front of him. It was obviously an offering, one that Six would gladly accept. He would never turn down a free meal.  
Although Six didn't know it, the heart and hand had belonged to Evelynn from Team Royal, and that it was Du Couteau's Crimson Elite that had left the morsels of meat in front of him to consume. They were trying to accelerate his evolution.

No sooner than Six had finished Evelynn's heart, did he roar, and his body start to change. His purple shell took on a darker, more black hue, and light-sensitive spines sprouted all over his body, breaking through his old shell like plants out of the ground. With a shake, it shed off its old skin, to reveal its new plating. His shell seemed to swim with the light around it. A little concentration, and Six could turn nearly invisible.

Eager to try out it's new ability, Six melted into the shadows without a sound. With only a thought, Six disappeared into thin air.

"hA Ah..." This Six liked. This would help get him much more foods. But as it moved, it noticed something. An imperfection in it's camouflage. Something red and stringy was still on one of his claws, and it seemed to hover in the air; suspended from Six's invisible claws.  
A scarlet shred of what once was Rengar's eyeball still clung to the tip of Specimen Six's scythe. Curiously extending it's neck out, Specimen Six chewed at that strand...

It found the meat delicious.  
More than delicious. Six could taste hidden potential in Rengar's flesh. Every morsel, every scrap of that strand felt like it was made of pure energy. There was something hidden in the Yautja's flesh, a key to unlock everything that Specimen Six could be. Six tasted the next great step in its evolution. And that got him excited. Very excited. Giddy, the creature slunk into a ventilation shaft, slicing past the metal screen like it was made of paper. His body was sated, but it's desires were not. It wanted that Yautja's flesh. No, it NEEDED that's Yautja's flesh. Six smiled in anticipation of the feast to come.

The hunt was on.

* * *

"...God." Yi was the first to break the silence. Him and the rest of Team Dark had finally arrived at the mess hall where Specimen Six and Rengar had clashed. The site was a catastrophe. Half of the mess hall tables, made of plate steel, and bolted to the metal floor, were smashed forwards, backwards, or otherwise cut in half. Furious gashes in the metal marked where an impossible sharp scythe had parted the steel like water, and the arena was littered with bone spines, embedded deep in metal, concrete, it didn't matter.

Team dark slowly spread out around the savaged mess hall. Riven traced the path of a long, jagged slice in the metal wall with her gloved hands. The scars in the steel were nearly sharp enough to cut through her suit and break flesh. She gulped. What the hell happened here? Lieutenant Commander stooped down to pick up a few up the spines. He carefully turned the projectile over in his hand, analyzing the bone missile with his seven lenses. These things... weren't machine tooled. They were grown. Then a shout got his attention.

"Oi!' Talon shouted, leaning against a fallen table. "Commander!"

Yiput the spines down, and strode over to where Crow Talon was pointing at.  
"That look like the Captain's to you?"

Pieces of the Captain's axes, one, shattered, probably from whatever left so many grooves in it's body, and the other, sliced clean off at the hilt, from something impossibly sharp. Yi picked up the blade of the axe that was sliced in half, and examined the cut. The separation was as smooth as if it had been lasered off. Looking up, Yi let the axe blade drop; the hardened ceramic clattered noisily against the metal floor. With the other hand. Yi drew his blade out. A two handed sword, but light enough to be held by a single hand. Along it's edge, sharpened, honed waves that could take a man's head off with a glance.

"Commander?" Talon nervously drew his blades along with Yi. A single long blade slid out from Talon's arm, and a fistful of daggers had appeared in Talon's other hand.  
"Dark," Yi whispered into his mic, alerting the rest of Team Dark. "On me." At his command, the rest of Team Dark assembled around Yi. At the sight of Yi with his sword out, some of them were already drawing their weapons in anticipation.

"Listen up, Dark." Yi made sure to make eye contact with each and every one of his team. Talon, Vayne, Nidalee, and Riven. They few would be the ones he would have to rely one most now. "The Captain is MIA. That means I'll be your commanding officer until he can resume command."

He held out his hand, with three fingers up.

"We have three objectives now."

He pulled one finger down.  
"One: our original objective. Find and kill Marcus Du Couteau"

Far away, in the cavernous engine room of The Ravenous Hydra, Du Couteau patiently waited for the arrival of Lance Corporal Jayce and his Team Royal. The Lord of Admirals had seated himself in a simple, but comfortable chair, enjoying a cup of fine wine while one of his two Crimson Elite stood by his side, arms crossed, waiting for the Headhunter's arrival.  
He took another sip of the Chateau Cheval that he had his Crimson Elite bring up to him from private quarters. It really was very good. But a little on the harsh side.  
He let the wine down from his lips to let it breathe more.  
This headhunter named Lance Corporal Jayce was taking an awfully long time. He was starting to get bored. Mindlessly, Du Couteau raised the cup to his lip again, and almost took another sip, before realizing what he was doing, and stopping. He paused for a second, before laughing to himself.

He could wait.

Two fingers down.  
"Two, find and retrieve Captain Rengar" Finally, three fingers down.

"And stay the hell out of the way..." Yi motioned to the Captain's discarded axe, still as smoothly cut as before. "of whatever did that."

Yi turned to Nidalee.

"Can you track the Captain's scent, Lieutenant?"  
Nidalee nodded at this, and closed her eyes. She took in a deep breath through her nose, held it for a moment, before letting her breath bleed out the same way.

"The Captain's battle stench is so clear here..." Nidalee, lost a bit, took another sniff, blushing a bit.  
She opened her eyes when she realized that the entire rest of the team was staring at her suspicously.

"Sorry," Nidalee shook herself in a very animal-like way. "You humans cannot smell his musk so easily... but it is like pheromones to other Yautja. Very strong. Very obvious."  
"But can you track it?"  
"Yes, but not for long. The Captain will have taken steps to cover his trail by now. That includes his scent trail."  
"Then we have to hurry. Lead the way."

* * *

He had found prey.

Despite his bulk, the Captain managed to pad along the metal corridors of The Ravenous Hydra silently and stealthily. In his hands, his retractable Kombi spear, and his ceremonial dagger, the Uhor Fang, in the other. He could hear the sounds of people moving along the corridors next to him. The noises of their movement was as obvious to them as if they were parading down the halls of the ship playing band instruments.

"Heheheh..." Rengar took a side path, up along a stepladder, into the upper level of The Ravenous Hydra's main hangar bay. His prey would stumble into his trap soon. And then... Rengar readied his spear, bouncing it a bit in his hands... it would be time to hunt.

* * *

Lance Corporal Jayce stomped through the entrance of the hangar bay, his Team Royal following close behind him. He grit his teeth as he walked, and he couldn't stop flexing his fingers.  
"How much further!"  
"The hangar bays are just above of the engine room," Brand offered, "We must be close."  
"Good. Because when we get there, we are going to pay back Du Couteau ten, no, a hundred times what they did to Evey! Oo-rah?"  
"Rah!" Though they put on a brave face, the remaining five members of his team still looked shaken.

"..." It was times like these that Jayce regretted buying everything he owned. It meant he never truly trusted whatever paid for. "Then let's move quickly, and get the hell off this ship."

His comrades nodded, and they pushed forwards. Jayce was just about to round a corner around a Longsword R75 when he noticed one of his men lagging behind. The man was standing alone, letting his team ahead of his pass him easily.  
"Hey, Jora. Quit stalling."  
The man didn't move.  
"Jora?"  
Jayce moved in closer.  
Then he saw the awkward angle Jora's head was tilted at, and the bola around his neck.

"Enemy attack!" Jayce shouted, and his team came running after him.  
"What- Jora!"  
"He's done for! Take up defensive positions."  
His team did exactly as he told, and for a moment, Jayce felt a spark of hope when he saw how efficiently they slid into position. Inexperienced they may be, but they were still professionals.

His hope was snuffed out like a candle when he heard the high pitched whistle of something being thrown into the air, and then heard the grunt of another one of his men. He had caught the spear in his chest. He stumbled back a bit, lightly touching the metal shaft in his body, sticking out of his sternum like a grotesque plant, before wordlessly crumpling to the ground.

"Move!" Jayce shouted to the remaining three other members of his team. "To the left!"  
He lead the way, his powered suit propelling him further, making a break for the exit to the hangar bay. He ducked underneath a gunship, and vaulted an assualt walker. He could see the exit!

"There! Double time!"

The four members of Team Royal sprinted to the exit, upon which a grenade came out of nowhere, landing straight in the middle of them. The three in front, Jayce, Sivr, and Brand, managed to scatter, but the luckless fourth Royal could not see what was in front of him. The grenade blast took him in the legs, sending him slamming against a nearby Brutalizer. The Royal hit the armored jeep like a sack of bricks, and the sound of breaking could be heard. It wasn't the jeep.

Coughing, the last few members of Team Royal pulled themselves up. As they did, Rengar Uhor strode over, and calmly placed his palm over the keypad, locking the door.

"...Uhor?" Jayce looked up, confused, and angry. "What... WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"  
Rengar raised his hand, revealing the jagged edge of his arm-mounted claw. It was stained with blood, and at his belt, was something red and round. Jayce realized with a pit in his stomach, what it was. Jora's head.

"Hunting."  
"BRAND!" Jayce screamed, as he closed his helmet around himself, "BURN THE FCKER!"

"HAHAHA!" Kegan flipped from his normally collected self, to the insane pyromaniac he really was, as he took off the safeties from his flamethrowers. He aimed his fists at Rengar, and from them, a stream of napalm burst out to threaten to envelop Rengar.

With a smirk, Rengar darted to the left, taking cover behind a Mk780 tank. The scorching napalm burned off the paint, but no more.

"Sivir!"

"On it!" She yelled, pulling out homing throwing stars. She threw them hapazardly about the scattered vehicles. The stars spun throught the air for a moment, before abrutly shifting direction, all aimed at Rengar, who was still pinned behind the tank. The Yautja burst from cover, flames licking off of his armor, but he was still relatively unharmed.

"Die, bastard!" Jayce transformed his hammer into its cannon mode, levelling the weapon at Rengar. The Mercury Cannon kicked back, firing a shock blast that Rengar avoided only by the skin of his teeth. The yautja crouched to the side, letting the energy blast soar over his back, punching a hole into a fighter ship behind him.

"It's over!" Sivir spun out an enormous bladed boomerang, it's arms forming an equal-lengthed cross. Rockets fired along the inner ring, twisting the boomerang faster and faster, until Sivir was holding a translucent disc in her hand.  
"Arggh!"  
She forced the disc forwards, sending the cross-shaped missile whirling at the Yautja.  
To which Rengar simply caught the blades on his armguard. The bladed boomerang cut deep into his armor, but did not draw blood.

From behind the cross-shaped boomerang, Rengar grinned.

"You're right- It is over." Rengar charged forwards, his claws dipping low onto the ground.  
"Ugh!" Sivir tossed star after star at Rengar, the sharpened bits of metal deflecting harmlessly off of the Yautja's thick armor and fur, right up until he rammed his claws from underneath her ribcage, and into her heart.

"Hkkk!"

Sivir lurched forwards, dying instantly.

"Sivir!" Jayce shouted. From behind his armored helm, he was nearly crying with rage and frustration.  
He changed his Mercury Cannon itnto it's hammer form, and swung upwards as hard as he could at the Yautja captain. Rengar easily caught the hammer by it's neck, which let him draw his arm back, and deliver a vicious slash across Jayce's face with his claws. The Lance Coporal twisted away, his metal mask shining bright silver where he had been scored by Rengar's claws.

Jayce turned to Brand, who was having the time of his life, burning everything around him.

"Brand! Go Pyroclasm now!"  
"HUAHAHAHA! AAAAHAHAHA!"  
Brand released the limiters to his flamethrowers, and the gouts of flame that bleched from his hands exploded in size and intensity.  
"BURN! BURN! HAHAHA!"

Jayce turned and ducked away as Brand started spinning around, burning everything in sight. The heat from the flames were now starting to melt even the metal of the various attack vehicles around them, and Jayce could feel the floor start to deform from the intense heat. He didn't know where Rengar was, but he damn sure hoped the bastard was burning right now.

But Rengar was elsewhere. Ducked behind a rapidly melting Brutalizer, the Yautja had his eyes closed, and he slowed his breathing.

"Phew..." His ancestral Headhunter armor was starting to shimmer into the background. "_Focus..._" He muttered in his ancient, sacred tongue.

Brand was still spinning about, torching anything that moved, anything that didn't, and everything in between. Jayce was still curled on the ground. Sivir's body had been long lost in the flames. The pyromaniac was now lost to the world, and nothing could bring him back to it.

Not even the jagged claws that sprouted from his chest, after Rengar snuck up behind him, and stabbed him through.  
Brand, despite being lifted off of the ground by the impalement in his chest, tried to torch the ground underneath him and Rengar in a bid to kill them both. The man was now blind to pain. But with a slash of his ceremonial dagger, Rengar cut the fuel lines to Brand's flamethrowers. The stream of fire from Brand's arms cut out almost comically quickly, and the Specialist was left with only useless, empty hoses.

"A worthy death for a worthy fight," Rengar said, as he stabbed Brand through his helmet with the Uhor Fang. "May your fires burn bright, forever in my family fang! Huahahaha..." Without so much as another glance, he tossed Brand away like a ragdoll.

"And now... only you are left, _y'sheelee..._"

Jayce staggered upwards, bringing his Mercury Hammer to ready. From behind his visor, his eyes were already burning bright with hatred and contempt.

"You Monster..."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Once again, Jayce's silver and gold Mercury Hammer found only air. The massive Yautja that Jayce was aiming at twisted downwards at the last moment, eluding death, and letting the high-tech maul pass over him harmlessly. The braids in his hide licked at Jayce's full-metal armor suit, all while Rengar laughed. Jayce grunted, then turned backwards, bringing his hammer down, then up in an underhand swing. Rengar caught the blow on his armguard, and was pushed back along the scorched hangar bay floor, skidding as his clawed feet tried to find purchase on the corrugated steel. Jayce shifted his Mercury Hammer into its cannon form, and tried a blast at the beastman in front of him, but Rengar darted lightly away from the shock of energy. Jayce's shot instead smashed into a Brutalizer jeep, flipping the massive vehicle onto it's side.

As they recovered, Rengar stood up straight, brushing himself off. His fanged smile was more terrifying than ever.  
"Not bad, y'sheelee."  
Jayce twisted his Mercury Cannon back into it's hammer form. He gave no response, except to grit his teeth and put his hammer at ready. He could sense it as well as Rengar could. He was out-matched.

"Mory," Jayce muttered to his on-suit AI, "release limiters."

"Uhor," Jayce called out, as his personal AI was overriding his power suit's safety limitations. "I've removed my suit's power limiters." Jayce brought his Mercury Hammer down low, as the bright light inside shone whiter, and fiercer. "Weapons and Defenses at 247% over-capacity, Uhor. Can you handle it?"

"Bring it on." Rengar turned his paw up, and beckoned to him.

"Raaaah!" Jayce leaped into the air, before bringing his hammer down in a crushing blow. Rengar shifted to the side to let the Gunship behind him receive the blow, and admired the effect when he saw the Lance Corporal crumple the steel of it's hull with his hammer.

Rengar was about to return the favor, but Jayce was quicker. The removal of his suit's power limiters hyper-drove his movements. Lance Corporal Jayce slammed Rengar in the chest with his armored fist, sending the Yautja flying back.

Rengar slid across the floor until he struck a tank. Jayce didn't let him catch his breath. He was already upon him with that same overhead swing. This time, Rengar was forced to use both hands to catch the blow. The Lance Corporal's blow shook him down to his bone, and for a moment, Rengar thought his forearms had broken. Then the Mercury Hammer's head stopped inches away from his face, and Rengar could feel the weight of the weapon on his paws. The Yautja grinned.  
"Hah!"

Rengar pushed back with his arms, and to the armored, augmented man's astonishment, Jayce could feel the Yautja winning.

"Can't you FEEL it, Jayce? The Thrill of the Hunt? Can you FEEL your life stretch, sharpen, and slow, in this forest of swords, and rain of bullets?" Rengar reliquished one limb's grip on the Mercury hammer, and swept his right paw forwards, colliding with Jayce's upheld, armored forearm. Rengar pushed forwards,leaping up, and driving his mounted claws at Jayce's face.  
"This is how we Yautja live forever, Jayce! In the moment of the Hunt!"

"RAAGH!" With a furious shout, Jayce flipped his arm down, catching Rengar's arm in his powered grip. The two struggled for a moment, before,with a twist, Jayce flung the massive Yautja captain over his shoulder. Rengar bounced once off of the cold steel floor, before landing on his back. Jayce was on top of him in a flash. The Yautja could practically taste the hatred and killing intent flooding from Jayce.

"A worthy death for a worthy fight," sneered Jayce as he raised his Mercury Hammer high.  
"So you do understand." Rengar replied, as he turned to stab his Uhor Fang through Jayce's armored foot. The Acalciamite dagger punched through steel, flesh, and bone, shattering them all. Jayce screamed; his right foot nailed into the ground.  
He raeched down to try to wrench the dagger out, but it was stuck fast.

Rengar wrestled Jayce's Mercury Hammer away from him. The Yautja paused for a moment, before turning around to smash his foe in the face with his own weapon. Metal collided against metal with a sickening crunch, and when Rengar pulled the Mercury Hammer away, the twisted plates of metal that once made up Jayce's helm fell away from the face of his maul. The man did not fall, propped up by his armor and the Acalciamite dagger in his foot.

"A worthy death for a worthy fight." Rengar said respectfully, as he tossed the dead warrior's hammer at his feet.

* * *

"...Mmh!" Nidalee suddenly stopped, prompting a swift halt from the rest of her team in response. Yi held out his hand and clenched it into a fist, as they left Nidalee dart from one intersection in the corridor to another, sniffing the stale ship air almost frantically. After a few more seconds, she stopped.  
"The Captain's trail stops here." She reported, stepping back from the split in the ship.  
Yi sighed, and took a few steps past Nidalee. His sword still hung over his shoulder, but he had his hand on his left hip.  
"To the left, the hangar bays," Yi muttered, reading off the Noxian words painted on the wall on the left, then glancing at the words posted on the other side. "The right looks like it leads to the main armory on this ship. Looks like both are close to the main engine room."  
"Makes sense," Nidalee cut in. "They would want to keep their weapons and defenses close to the engine room if they needed to hold it against a breach."

"Oh, _Bravo._ Very clever." A voice cut in from behind them. At the unexpected sound, the headhunter team all whirled around in shock. In the low light, a slim person, wrapped in the black and crimson armor that signified the best of Noxia's best- the Crimson Elite. Though the elite bodyguard seemed to be unarmed, Team Dark took no chances. In a flash, every Dark had drawn their weapons. Daggers appeared out of nowhere in Talon's hand, coupled with the massive blade mounted on his armguard. Vayne's crossbow snapped open as she drew it from behind her back to level it straight over the Crimson Elite's heart. Even Riven managed to draw her pistol, no matter how awkwardly.

Slowly, casually, the Crimson Elite raised red-gloved hands. The soldier seemed to be unfazed by the array of weapons that was suddenly drawn.  
"What do you want, Crimson Elite?" Lieutenant Yi stated, spinning his sword over in his hands, while Nidalee drew a Yautjian Kombi spear from behind him.  
"Hm..." The Crimson Elite leaned up against a wall, a sudden motion that nearly drew fire from the rest of Team Dark. "Nothing much, really. My lord simply wishes that you keep away from the hangar bays for a while."

"You think you can stop us?" Vayne challenged, drawing the string to her crossbow further back. It wasn't completely a rhetorical question. The entire team tensed up at thought of the possiblity of there being a person who could wipe them all out. Good, and by proxy, alive headhunters never took chances.  
"Heh." The Crimson Elite chuckled. Something extremely strange when faced with no less than five different ways to die in less than a second. "...No." The Crimson Elite approached Team Dark formation with almost suicidal detachment. She walked up until Riven's pistol was nearly pushed up against the Crimson's chest. It was then that Riven noticed. This Crimson Elite had the body shape of a woman.

"You're going to stay out of there for me and my lord." The Crimson Elite bent down until the dark of her helmet visor was nearly touching Riven's face. "I'm just here to tell you why."  
Yi's sword hand tensed over his blade.  
"And why is that?"

"Because," The Crimson Elite reached up, and released the valves on her helmet. The hissing of pressurized oxygen filled the dark corridor as Team Dark slowly raised their collective weapons to point at the Crimson Elite's head. Levers popped out from all sides, as the woman reached up to snap them into their open position. The Crimson Elite's helm was free now.

"...You'd be surrounded from all sides, Lieutenant." She reached up to pull her helmet off. "Your esteemed Captain Uhor has gone feral, and is now slaughtering anything in his way to get at our latest experimental weapon. You'd be assailed by him from the front."  
"... and from the back?" Yi questioned.  
"...heh." The Crimson Elite paused at lifting her helm up.

Meanwhile, in the front of the group, Riven felt a wave of forboding hit her. She didn't know what it was, but something felt off. And it wasn't a new feeling- it was the same feeling she always got when her past caught up with her present. It was pure, unadulterated, guilt of sin.  
That feeling of sin was streaming like a flood from that unknown Crimson Elite.  
"...it can't be," she whispered, though no one could hear her. "...it can't be you..."

"You have a traitor in your midst." The Crimson Elite toyed, "I guess you didn't know."  
She took off her helmet.  
Riven wouldn't dare to look up. She wasn't even looking any longer at where she was aiming her pistol.

"But that's no surprise. You were always the best of Noxia's Black Guard, weren't you?"  
Riven knew who it was, but she couldn't bring herself to believe it. Beads of cold sweat broke out over her face. The private's breathing skipped, and it drew out ragged and harsh.

Katarina Du Couteau leaned down to stare Riven in the face. To force her to look at her. Her crimson hair and the scar over her eye was unmistakable.  
"Hello," Katarina said, in that same tone, and with that same, kind, smiling face that she and Riven had shared so many laughs over the years, "my dear, sweet, 'Rivi'."

All of Team Dark turned to look at their Rookie in shock. Slowly, carefully, Vayne turned her crossbow to aim at Riven's back.

Riven's breaths came out as gasps now. She was full-on trembling, and the back of her suit was staiend with cold sweat.  
"...*ha*...*ha*... n-no..." Riven, still shaking, struggled to stare into her old friend's eyes. "...you're... dead..."  
"Why?" Katarina stood up, shrugging casually, looking about at her armored body. "Because you think you killed me, Rivi?" Katarina put a hand on Riven's shoulder; the terrified private recoiled from the touch with shock. "Come on... you know you could never kill me. We're friends, right?"

At this, Talon, Vayne, and Nidalee took a step back away from Riven. Even Yi was glancing more often then he would have at the trembling private. She was now alone, caught in between Katarina, and the rest of Team Dark.

"As I said, Lieutenant Yi," Katarina called out, casually. "Surrounded. On both sides." Katarina turned around to wave good-bye to Team Dark.

"Wait!" Vayne shouted out, snapping her crossbow back to Katarina. "Even if this Noxian brat's been playing us- you're still our enemy." Corporal Luce's finger tightened against the tirgger on her crossbow. "You're coming with us, and we're going to wring every, last, bit of information about Du Couteau from you." Vayne fired at Katarina, and the bolt whizzed over her shoulder, to slam into the wall right beside the assassin's scarred face. "You're coming with us- don't make me force you, Noxia scum."

"...Heheheh. You don't want to do that." Katarina looked over her shoulder, and blew a kiss at Riven. "I might not be able to beat all of you at once- but it'd be easy to carve through your squad with Rivi at my side. Especially since that you've closed the gap for her already."

Katarina turned a single finger over at Riven. Her grin was almost sickeningly smug. "'Cuz that's the legendary Noxian swordmistress at your feet there- the infamous Blood Angel of the Black Guard. Rook 'Angel' Riven."

At this, Talon swore loudly, and thrust his arm blade at Riven's neck.  
"Crow! STOP!" Yi screamed, and the headhunter did. His arm-mounted blade just pricked Riven's exposed jugular- a dot of blood pooled out from the piercing, and ran a red line down Riven's neck, mixing with the sweat of fear.

"You..." Talon spat out, chewing over each word like a curse, "..you're Angel?! So the biggest threat on this ship isn't Du Couteau, or the Captain, or whatever monster he fought with..." Talon edged forwards, unmistakably wanting nothing more than to thrust his blade clean through Riven's neck. "...the biggest threat on this ship is you."

"You see now?" Katarina called out, almost laughing. "Don't want to pick a fight with us now. I don't know what'd happen if she went nuts. She might even kill me." Katarina grinned at that.  
Turning on her heel, Katarina strolled away with lackadaisial ease, waving.  
"In fact, she did."

And soon the Noxian assassin had disappeared.

And only Team Dark was left. Talon still had her blade at Riven's throat. Vayne now switched targets back from Katarina, to the base of Riven's neck, where her spinal cord was. Even Nidalee was a hair's breadth away from ramming her spear deep into Riven's exposed calf. Of them all, only Yi stayed his blade.

The most uncomfortable silence in all of space's history swept through the corridor of the abandoned supercruiser.

It was Yi who broke the silence first.  
"Team Dark," he said in his calm, commanding voice. "form up."  
Slowly, carefully, Talon, Vayne, and Nidalee assumed positions behind him; never once turning their weapons away from the girl in front of them. Riven did not move.  
"We move into the armory...

Yi took a breath.

...and take the Private in custody."

Riven let the cold handcuffs be slapped onto her without protest. Once secured, she was shoved in front of her former team; dazed, almost drukenedly walking off, into the dark passage that led into the ship's armory.


End file.
